Floods, landslides and accidents triggered by nine days of torrential rain have killed at least 13 people in the northern Philippines, rescuers said Monday, as some areas received more than a month’s worth of rainfall.
The heavy rains, intensified by tropical storms, have forced the closure of schools and government offices across Luzon, the country’s main island, while streets in the capital, Manila, have been inundated.
Four of the deaths occurred in the mountain resort city of Baguio, where a rain-soaked mountainside collapsed onto several houses, killing four residents, city disaster official Charles Carame told AFP.
Rescuers were digging through the rubble on Monday in search of at least six people who remained missing a day after the landslide, he said.
State weather forecaster Dan Villamil said rainfall in Baguio, about four hours north of Manila, had already exceeded the city’s normal total for the entire month of August by 47 percent.
“The rainfall recorded for August 1-9 was highest in Baguio, with an accumulated 1,413.2 millimetres (56 inches),” he said, noting that the city typically receives 963.2 millimetres of rain throughout August.
Parts of Metro Manila had also received rainfall equivalent to about 90 percent of the capital region’s typical August total, Villamil added.
Landslides killed six more people elsewhere on Luzon, while one person drowned, another was struck by a falling tree and one was electrocuted, according to a civil defence office tally.
Although heavy rain continued into Monday evening, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said floodwaters were beginning to recede.
“Our interventions are continuing, but we really need to fix the years and decades’ worth of faulty flood mitigation interventions,” Dizon told reporters, referring to a scandal involving alleged bogus flood-control projects that have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt and is struck by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, leaving millions of people living in disaster-prone areas vulnerable to repeated losses and deepening poverty.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent, prolonged and intense.
AFP
