By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
At least five people were killed, three others are missing and more than 100 were evacuated Wednesday as heavy flooding struck three villages in the Southern Philippines
The villages experienced floods due to intermittent rains that started last week, according to a report from the Philippines News Agency (PNA).
Ana Caneda, head of the office of the civil defense in Northern Mindanao, noted the floods, however, were not an effect of Typhoon Hanna that entered the Philippine area of responsibility Wednesday morning.
“The rains... caused the water tributaries... to overflow resulting in the flooding of some villages in the cities of Valencia and Malaybalay,” the agency reported her as saying.
According to Inquirer.net, the office reported that the dead included a 6-month-old girl and three other children aged 6 to 9 who drowned.
Caneda added that 103 families had been evacuated to a gymnasium as Northern Mindanao gears for Hanna.
Weather bureau official Esperanza Cayanan warned of possible landslides after two weeks of heavy rain in the south.
She said that starting Wednesday the southwest monsoon will be enhanced by the typhoon.
The state-run weather agency said Wednesday that forecasts had predicted that Typhoon Soudelor - renamed "Hanna" when it entered the Philippines territory - would not to make landfall, but was expected to bring strong monsoon winds and rains.
The typhoon was packing a maximum wind of 195 kilometers an hour and was monitored by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) at 1,360 kilometers east of Cagayan province in the country's north earlier in the morning.
