Nearly 100 people have died in one of the most destructive storms to lash the Philippines this year with dozens more feared missing in a mudslide-hit mountainside village, while more than a million others were swamped by floodwater in several provinces, officials said Monday. At least 53 of 98 people who died — mostly in flooding and landslides — were from Maguindanao in the Bangsamoro autonomous region, which was swamped by unusually heavy rains set off by Tropical Storm Nalgae. The storm blew out of the country and into the South China Sea on Sunday, leaving a trail of destruction in a large swath of the archipelago. A large contingent of rescuers with bulldozers and backhoes resumed retrieval work in southern Kusiong village in the hard-hit province of Maguindanao, where as many as 80 to 100 people, including entire families, are feared to have been buried by a boulder-laden mudslide or swept away by flash floods that started overnight Thursday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerrillas under a peace pact. The government’s main disaster-response agency also reported 69 people were injured in the onslaught and at least 63 others remain missing. More than 1 million people were lashed by the storm, including more than 912,000 villagers who fled to evacuation centers or homes of relatives. More than 4,100 houses and 16,260 hectares (40,180 acres) of rice and other crops were damaged by floodwaters at a time when the country was bracing for a looming food crisis because of global supply disruptions, officials said. Sinarimbo said the official tally of missing people did not include most of those feared missing in the huge mudslide that hit Kusiong because entire families may have been buried and no member was left to provide names and details to authorities. The catastrophe in Kusiong, populated mostly by the Teduray ethnic minority group, was particularly tragic because its more than 2,000 villagers have carried out disaster-preparedness drills every year for decades to brace for a tsunami because of a deadly history. But they were not as prepared for the dangers that could come from Mount Minandar, where their village lies at the foothills, Sinarimbo said. “When the people heard the warning bells, they ran up and gathered in a church on a high ground,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press on Saturday, citing accounts by Kusiong villagers. “The problem was, it was not a tsunami that inundated them but a big volume of water and mud that came down from the mountain,” he said. In August 1976, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in the Moro Gulf that struck around midnight left thousands of people dead and devastated coastal provinces in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Philippine history. Lying between the Moro Gulf and 446-meter (1,464-foot) Mount Minandar, Kusiong was among the hardest hit by the 1976 catastrophe. The village never forgot the tragedy. Elderly villagers who survived the tsunami and powerful earthquake passed on the nightmarish story to their children, warning them to be prepared. “Every year, they hold drills to brace for a tsunami. Somebody was assigned to bang the alarm bells and they designated high grounds where people should run to,” Sinarimbo said. “Villagers were even taught the sound of an approaching big wave based on the recollection of the tsunami survivors.” “But there wasn’t as much focus on the geo-hazards on the mountainside,” he said. Bulldozers, backhoes and payloaders were brought to Kusiong on Saturday with more than 100 rescuers from the army, police and volunteers from other provinces, but they were unable to dig at a spot where survivors said the church lay underneath because the muddy mound was still dangerously soft, officials said. The stormy weather in a large swath of the country hindered transportation as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for visits to relatives’ tombs and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation. Nearly 200 domestic and international flights were canceled, Manila’s international airport was briefly closed amid stormy weather and voyages in storm-whipped seas were prohibited by the coast guard, stranding thousands of passengers. Floodwaters swamped many provinces and cities, trapping some people on their roofs. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed disappointment over the high casualty toll in a televised meeting Saturday with disaster-mitigation officials. “We should have done better,” Marcos Jr. said. “We were not able to anticipate that the volume of water will be that much so we were not able to warn the people and then to evacuate them out of the way of the incoming flash floods.” About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.

The death toll from floods in the country rose to 131 with two more deaths in Lalmonirhat  district in 24 hours till Tuesday morning. The deaths were recorded from May 17 to July 26, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). The latest victims drowned in floodwater, it added. Of the deceased, 73 were from Sylhet, 43 from Mymensingh, 14 from Rangpur and one from Dhaka division. Read: Flood damages property, crops worth over Tk 86811 crore: Enamur One hundred and three people drowned in floodwaters, 16 died by lightning strikes, two from snake bites, one from diarrhoea, and nine others due to other reasons. Around 24,838 people were hit by floods during the same period. One hundred and eighty-five upazilas were affected by floods, including 33 in Sylhet, three in Rangpur, seven in Mymensingh and one in Chattogram divisions. Sylhet, Sunamganj, Netrokona and Moulvibazar were the worst-hit districts, with 13, 11, seven and five upazilas affected by floods respectively.

Floodwater in Kurigram is receding but on the way it revealed several critical problems for the vulnerable population here as thousands of people have lost the means of living a dignified life. Plan International Bangladesh, an  international development organization, emphasized the need for comprehensive support for the adversely affected  population. Josna, a young woman from Nageswari, found her house submerged in flood water which left her life in uncertainty. “This single flood has turned our daily life upside down. Wherever I look, there’s nothing except floodwater. My family is suffering from food shortage, but there are other challenges for me too. How would I maintain my menstrual hygiene? “ said Josna. Also read: Sirajganj’s flood situation improves, people’s sufferings continue To stand beside people like Josna, Plan International Bangladesh has distributed food and non-food items among the flood-affected families in Kachakata and Ballaberkhash unions of Nageswari Upazila of Kurigram district. The response focuses on the needs of young women and girls. Some 5560 packets of dry food, 1,00,000 water purification tablets, 1840 Non-Food Items (NFI), and 1820 Menstrual Health Management (MHM) kits have been distributed during the first phase of the response. Morjina, another young woman from Nageswari, shared, “As we don’t  have any options to cook food receiving dry food is a great relief for us. The menstrual hygiene kits are also essential, as we cannot even share this problem with others in this crisis.” Mahidev Jubo Somaj Kallayan Somity is supporting Plan International Bangladesh as a partner in implementing this response. Ashik Billah, Head of Central & Northern Region of Plan International Bangladesh, Shahadat Hossain Chairman of Kachakata Union Parishad, and SM Abdur Razzak, Chairman of Ballaberkash Union Parishad, were present at the distribution point. “From media reports, we know that around 2 lakh people in Kurigram have become homeless due to this flood. Plan International Bangladesh has been the first responder in Nageswari since the flood hit the community. However, we cannot ensure the protection of the entire community by ourselves. We all need to come forward in a joint effort”, said Ashik Billah. Also read: Flood Water receding, but not the diseases, food, and water crisis “Children are getting sick due to water-borne diseases. The sufferings of pregnant women and new mothers are beyond our imagination. Strengthened health facilities have become a crying need now”, he added. Plan International Bangladesh pledges to continue responding to this area, focusing on child protection, gender-based violence, and education along with the needs of girls and young women.

A 32-year-old woman drowned as a boat sank in floodwater at Jurail village in Kendua upazila of Netrokona district on Tuesday. The deceased was identified as Julekha Begum, wife of Hares Mia of the village. Also read:Man injured while receiving flood relief dies in Sylhet Mir Mahbubur Rahman, inspector of Kendua police station, said Julekha, her 7-year-old daughter Tanjina,  sister-in-law Nazmunnahar and two others were going to Jurail Haor by a small boat Tuesday morning. At one stage, Tanjina fell into water from the boat. Julekha managed to save her daughter but she drowned in floodwater. Also read: Flood situation worsens in Kurigram, over 2 lakh affected

Floods triggered by onrush of water from the upstream and heavy rains have inundated low-lying areas in different upazilas of Lalmonirhat and Kurigram districts, rendering several thousand people marooned.

Incessant rains for the last several days and tidal surge have inundated some parts of Chattogram city.

Thousands of flood-hit people saw no respite from their sufferings as the overall flood situation remained nearly unchanged across the country on Friday. 

The overall flood situation in Kurigram, Natore, Bogura and Sherpur districts have deteriorated further due to rise in water levels in various rivers, cutting off road communications at places and leaving thousands of people marooned.