Heavy flooding displaces thousands in Philippines as new storm threatens
MANILA: Heavy flooding inundated the Philippines' capital on Tuesday, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee and schools and government offices to shut, while a fresh storm brewed off the coast. At least six people have died and another six remain missing after Tropical Storm Wipha skirted the country on Friday, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
Many neighborhoods in Manila woke to find calf-deep pools of floodwater Tuesday after an overnight downpour swelled the Marikina River. More than 23,000 people living along the riverbank were evacuated from their homes overnight and moved to schools, village halls and covered courtyards.
About 47,000 more were evacuated from across the capital's Quezon, Pasig and Caloocan areas, as well as from the main government district. 'Usually, these people are from low-lying areas like beside creeks,' said Wilmer Tan of the Marikina rescue office, who said the river had reached 18 meters (59 feet) in height. An elderly woman and her driver were swept down one of the swollen creeks as they attempted to cross a bridge in Caloocan, said John Paul Nietes, an emergency worker. It was initially hoped that the pair had escaped after the car was recovered with a broken window. But Caloocan Mayor Dale Gonzalo Malapitan announced one of the bodies had been found.
'We've found (the driver),' he told Manila radio station DZMM. 'The body was recovered 4.5 kilometers from where the vehicle was swept away.... They were unable to bail out.'
As floodwaters began receding in Manila by Tuesday afternoon, the national weather service said a low-pressure area off the country's east coast had developed into a tropical depression. While not expected to make landfall, the depression would bring continued heavy rain through the end of the week, the agency said. Thousands of people, meanwhile, remained unable to return to their homes.
AFP journalists in Cainta, a small town on the outskirts of the capital, saw residents using styrofoam boxes and abandoned refrigerators as makeshift floatation devices to navigate the floodwaters.
Angelo Dela Cruz, 18, employed a rubber boat — one purchased in anticipation of frequent flooding — to transport rice for his aunt's small eatery. 'Instead of using the van, we have to use the boat and push it while we wade through the flood to prevent the rice from getting wet,' he said.
At least 20 storms or typhoons strike or come near the Philippines each year, with the country's poorest regions typically the hardest hit. Deadly and destructive storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer because of climate change. 'This is hard, because if the rain will continue... the river will swell,' Manila street sweeper Avelina Lumangtad, 61, told AFP as she stood next to a flooded thoroughfare. 'The floods are dangerous.' – AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Kuwait Times
Philippines shuts schools, scraps flights as Typhoon Co-May nears
MANILA: Residents wade through a flooded street after heavy rains in Dagupan City, Pangasinan province, north of Manila on July 24, 2025. --AFP MANILA: The Philippines shut down schools and cancelled flights Thursday as typhoon-driven rains pounded the northern island of Luzon, a situation President Ferdinand Marcos called 'the new normal'. Typhoon Co-May, upgraded from a tropical storm overnight, follows days of monsoon rains that have killed at least 19 people and left another 11 missing across the archipelago since July 18, according to the national disaster agency. With maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, the typhoon was expected to make landfall on the west coast in either La Union or Ilocos Sur province by Friday morning, the country's weather service said. Marcos said on Thursday that climate change meant Filipinos needed to be thinking about how to adapt to a 'new normal'. 'This is not an extraordinary situation anymore... This will be our lives no matter what we do,' he told a televised cabinet briefing, adding the country should plan for the long-term in addressing natural disasters. 'This is the way it's going to be as far as we know for... many decades to come, so let's just prepare,' he said. 'We have to understand that the climate has changed, the rain patterns have changed,' he added, pointing to recent devastating flooding in the US state of Texas. Around 70 domestic and international flights in the Philippines were cancelled Thursday due to the storms, the civil aviation authority said. The government later announced that classes across Luzon would remain suspended through Friday. Tens of thousands were evacuated across Manila earlier this week by floodwaters that swamped some neighborhoods in waist-deep water and left residents of nearby provinces stranded and in need of rescue by boat. As of Thursday, at least several thousand people in Manila remained unable to return to their homes. 'We cannot send them home yet because it is still raining and some typhoons are still expected to affect the country,' Ria Mei Pangilinan, a rescue coordinator in the capital, told AFP. 'There might be more (evacuees) if the rain does not stop.'—AFP
Arab Times
2 days ago
- Arab Times
Philippines hit by heavy rains, severe flooding amid series of storms, monsoon
MANILA, July 24, (Xinhua): Heavy rain threatened to trigger more severe floods and landslides in the Philippines on Thursday as the country experiences a series of three tropical storms in days, worsening a disaster that has already left up to 12 people dead and over 2.7 million people displaced. In a report, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said that a total of 765,869 families, or approximately 2,733,646 people, have been affected nationwide by flooding and landslides due to relentless rain dumped by Tropical Storm Wipha and the enhanced southwest monsoon since last week. The agency reported that 12 have died and eight remain missing in the wake of Wipha and the monsoon rain. The death toll is expected to rise in the coming days as the agency continues validating fatalities from across the country. The agency said Wipha and the monsoon caused significant damage to the country. The damage to agriculture amounts to 366.38 million pesos (roughly 6.5 million U.S. dollars), encompassing damage to rice, corn, high-value crops, fisheries, and livestock, which affects thousands of farmers and fisherfolk. Additionally, the damage to infrastructure totals 3.77 billion pesos (approximately 66.5 million dollars). Even with Wipha's exit from the Philippines on Saturday, the southwest monsoon rain continued to fall due to two tropical storms, Francisco and Co-May, battering the country on Wednesday and Thursday. The Philippine weather bureau, PAGASA, said Thursday that Tropical Storm Co-May is expected to move southeastward before turning north-northeastward, possibly passing close to Pangasinan province in the afternoon and making landfall over the Ilocos Region by Thursday night or early Friday.
Arab Times
3 days ago
- Arab Times
Heavy storms in Vietnam leave 1 dead, as Wipha weakens into tropical depression
HANOI, Vietnam, July 23, (AP): Heavy storms in northern Vietnam left one person dead and another missing, police said Wednesday, as Wipha weakened from a tropical storm into a depression. A 59-year-old man was killed in Nghe An province when a tree fell on his house on Sunday before the storm made landfall, police said. Nghe An, which stretches from the coast to the mountainous Laos border, was among the areas hit hardest by heavy rain and floods. Another woman was swept away by floodwaters and remains missing. Four other people were injured. Flooding damaged hundreds of homes, destroyed crops and cut off remote communities, officials said. Nearly 400 households were evacuated from the province's landslide-prone areas, and several upland communities remain isolated without electricity or communication, officials said. Heavy rains triggered landslides that damaged roads, collapsed part of a school building and destroyed crops and forest. The storm made landfall Tuesday morning with sustained winds of up to 102 kilometers per hour (63 mph) before weakening as it moved inland. It caused power outages, disrupted farming operations and forced temporary airport closures in northern provinces. In neighboring Thailand, heavy rain from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning triggered flooding in several northern provinces, swelling rivers and inundating homes. Authorities said more than 350 people were affected, though no casualties have been reported. They warned of possible flash floods and landslides.
