109 dead in Bohol due to Odette –governor

Bohol recorded an additional Typhoon Odette-related death bringing the number to 109, governor Arthur Yap said on Wednesday.

The new fatality was from Pres. Carlos P. Garcia, which now has six deaths.

Meanwhile, most of the casualties still came from the second district of Bohol, particularly in Talibon and Ubay with 14 deaths each.

Yap said the Odette death toll is “low” compared with that of Super Typhoon Yolanda which ravaged the country, especially Leyte and its nearby provinces, in November 2013 and claimed over 6,300 lives.

“Every death in any calamity is one death too many. But considering the size and the gravity, the severity, and the ferocity of this super typhoon, I think the numbers are basically low,” he said in an ANC interview.

“I feel like this number (Odette fatalities) could’ve been higher if we did not order forced evacuations and the mayors did not act early enough,” he added.

On December 15, Yap narrated that even their first responders–the police, military, and disaster risk reduction officers were affected by Odette. He noted that it was like “Typhoon Haiyan [Yolanda] again.”

In a bulletin posted by Yap on Facebook on Wednesday, as verified by the Department of Health and local government units (LGUs), five other individuals were missing, while 2,040 were injured in the province.

There were also 61,997 individuals or 26,590 families evacuated due to the storm.

However, Yap said this number still varies as people come and go in evacuation centers at different times of the day.

“They have used the evacuation centers like hubs, like safe havens while people go out to fix their homes. The numbers go up and down. The minimum is 70,000 but I would place them at 100,000 people right now congregating in evacuation centers all over Bohol,” he said.

Due to this, Yap is encouraging the Department of Health to take advantage of this situation and vaccinate the people in the evacuation centers.

“In the last two weeks, we have not been able to put up any effort at vaccinating people for COVID because of Typhoon Odette,” he said.

The LGUs were also able to preserve the COVID-19 vaccines in storage facilities as they have power generators, he added.

There is still no power supply in Bohol and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said on Wednesday that restoring power in the province remains a challenge for them as a number of transmission lines and towers were affected by the typhoon.

Residents then have to temporarily draw power from power barges and generators for power supplies.

Yap said the province had a “bleak” Christmas as there was no power, water, and telecommunications available in the province.

“Of course we Filipinos are very positive-thinking people, we're very much optimists, but I must tell you and share with you—it was really very bleak last December 24 when we celebrated Christmas,” he stressed.

About 90% of houses were also affected in varying degrees in the province. The LGUs are then asking for chainsaw supplies so that people could make their own lumbers and fix their homes.—AOL, GMA News