Philippine President Gloria Arroyo placed her nation under a “state of calamity” yesterday and terrified people fled their homes as a powerful typhoon threatened to unleash more carnage following deadly floods.
After being accused of not preparing her country adequately for last Saturday’s storm that killed 293 people in and around Manila, Arroyo also ordered forced evacuations of towns in the direct path of Typhoon Parma.
“Our prayers are that no lives will be lost,” said Bella Angara, the governor of the northern province of Aurora, which is one of the areas predicted to feel Parma’s full force this afternoon.
The government warned Parma would tear down houses in and around Aurora, while likely bringing more heavy rain to Manila and nearby areas that were still recovering from Saturday’s record floods.
“We’re praying very hard that the super typhoon will spare us,” said housewife Nita Solita, 42, who was living in a makeshift evacuation center in Manila after losing her home. “I don’t know what’s happening to our country.”
Nearly 400,000 people remained in under-prepared schools, gymnasiums and other makeshift government shelters after Typhoon Ketsana unleashed the heaviest rains in more than four decades on Manila.
The rains from Parma threatened to worsen already squalid conditions and further hamper relief supplies for the survivors in those shelters.
Many parts of Manila and neighboring regions also remain under water — with mud, debris and trash still blocking drains — so any more rain could lead to another surge in flood waters.
In one town that remained in chest-deep water on the outskirts of Manila, people were fleeing their homes in preparation for another surge in the floods.
“I ordered this morning the evacuation of people in flood-stricken areas ... thousands have already transferred to public schools and my own rice milling compound,” San Pedro Mayor Calixto Cataquiz said.
Arroyo also ordered the evacuation of those living in coastal and low-lying regions further north on Luzon, such as Aurora Province.
“We need that preventative evacuation,” Arroyo said in a nationally televised conference with government officials that was held to discuss preparations for Parma.
Her spokesman, Cerge Remonde, told reporters later that Arroyo had declared a state of calamity for the whole country, which allows local authorities to tap emergency funds and the national government to impose price controls.
About 1.8 million people could be exposed to Parma’s worst winds, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
The government weather station said that Parma, which was originally forecast to hit Aurora this morning, was now predicted to make landfall this afternoon after its pace slowed.
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