The Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte has sought immediate assistance from the national government to help rehabilitate the province from Typhoon Ineng’s heavy damages on infrastructure projects, agricultural crops, livestock and other properties valued at multi-million pesos, officials here reported.
On Saturday, the Sangguniang Panglalawigan held an emergency session and officially declared Ilocos Norte under the state of calamity.
Typhoon Ineng hit Ilocos Norte and nearby North Luzon provinces this week. It remained signal No. 2 in Ilocos Norte on Aug. 20-22, 2015 bringing continuous light-to-moderate wind blows and heavy rainfalls that caused flooding, landslide, power brownout and other wide destruction of properties. Only one casualty was reported.
As initial step to rehab the damages, Governor Imee Marcos had requested assistance particularly planting material replacement for the Ilocano farmers such as rice seeds, vegetable seeds and fertilizers as well as livestock. The fishery sector, she said, is in dire need of tilapia, bangus and malaga fingerlings plus their commercial marine feeds.
With over P401 million damages on infrastructure, the province needed building and construction materials such as corrugated GI sheets, iron nails and local tanguile.
For quick relief operations, the province had asked for additional search and rescue equipment such as fiberglass and rubber boats with outboard motors, ropes, hybrid brand electric winch, life vests, hydraulic cable cutter, life buoy cans, hard hats, rain coats, wheel burrows and flood lights.
Medicine supply was also prioritized due to reported widespread respiratory tract infection like diarrhea, flu and dengue in many villages.
As of August 23, 2015, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported a total of P456,878,938.65 damages in Ilocos Norte. It is predicted that the overall value of calamity losses in the province may reach over P2 billion mark (pgin-cmo)
