MIDSAYAP, Cotabato—As the sun set Friday, hopes waned for local rescuers to recover a woman and her nephew who drowned, as strong currents of rising floodwaters swept through riverside villages here during the onslaught of severe tropical storm ‘Kristine’ on Thursday.
Maricel Fermin, a niece of the victim, said her aunt and her younger sibling Kiert, drowned in fast-rising floodwaters that swept through Barangay Sambulawan, diverting in with strong current from the mainstream Mindanao Pulangi River.
Speaking in the native Maguindanao dialect, resident Nailah Piang said locals were hopeful that “God-Willing” Hadja Amia Katiang, 46, would be rescued alive along with her nephew, identified only as Kliert.”
Barangay Sambulawan is part of the 63-village Special Geographic Area (SGA)-Midsayap Cluster of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The BARMM government has paved roads-access to interior riverside barangays to provide residents with better land-based routes to local centers of commerce to bring their products for marketing.
Pau Angkan, another resident, said he hoped Katiang had clung by any wood or floating object adrift by the overflowing Mindanao Pulangi River, and that “she would be able to return home alive with her nephew.”
