FAMILIES cut off by widespread flooding in the Philippines are to get aid relief from international children's charity Plan.
Fifteen days of heavy rain triggered the flooding in Eastern Samar, submerging roads and destroying bridges, making the remote rural province even more difficult to reach.
Aid workers at Plan Philippines are to deliver food, water and medicines after deep waters drowned 14 people and left 200,000 affected.
Plan Philippines country director Michael Diamond said: "We'll be distributing essentials over the next few days.
"Also, as is often the case, it's the long-term development that will become an important need as well.
"Crops will have been destroyed and we'll be making an assessment as soon as the water levels drop sufficiently."
The heavy rains that caused rivers to burst their banks and swamp homes have finally stopped with better weather forecast.
Last Thursday, soldiers hiked through a remote central province to deliver food, water and clothes to thousands of evacuees.
Tens of thousands have been forced into temporary shelters in Eastern Samar, Leyte and Albay provinces.
The military was trying to get nearly 30,000 pounds (13,600 kilograms) of food and shelter materials to evacuees and hundreds of troops marched on foot to deliver bags of rice, packs of instant noodles, potable water, sleeping mats, tents and warm clothes.
Days of rains inundated rice fields and washed away wooden bridges, causing damage estimated at 500 million pesos ($12.2 million).
Separately, on the southern island of Mindanao, six people were killed in a landslide in Lanao del Norte province, burying several houses and destroying two small bridges late last Wednesday.
Landslides and floods are common in the Philippines, which is lashed by about 20 typhoons each year.
Environmental groups blame illegal logging for making flooding worse, particularly in the central Philippines, where more than 5,000 people died in 1991 in floods triggered by a typhoon.
In February 2006, about 1,000 people were buried alive when a mudslide from a barren mountain covered a farming village on a central island.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
An aerial shot of houses affected by floods in Libon town, Albay province, south of Manila February 22, 2008. Philippine soldiers hiked through a remote central province on Thursday to deliver ...
