Back-to-back typhoons left at least 55 people dead and rescuers scrambling yesterday to deliver food and water to hundreds of villagers stuck on rooftops for four days because of flooding in the northern Philippines.
Typhoon Nalgae slammed ashore in northeastern Isabela province on Saturday, then barreled across Luzon’s mountainous north and agricultural plains that were still sodden from fierce rain and wind unleashed by a howler just days earlier.
Nalgae left at least three people dead on Saturday, while Typhoon Nesat killed 52 others in the same region before blowing out on Friday.
Photo: Reuters
Nalgae was whirling 200km over the South China Sea from the country’s northeast toward southern China early yesterday with sustained winds of 130kph and gusts of 160kph, according to the government weather agency.
Its ferocious wind set off a rockslide in northern Bontoc province on Saturday, causing boulders to roll down a mountainside and hit a passing van, where a passenger was pinned to death and another was injured, police said.
In northern Tarlac province’s Camiling town, an uncle sought safety with his two young nephews as flooding rose in their village on Saturday. However, one of the children was swept away by rampaging waters and drowned while his uncle and brother remained missing. A drunk man drowned in flooding in a nearby village, provincial disaster officer Marvin Guiang said.
Nalgae roared through a similar path across areas on Luzon saturated by Nesat, which trapped thousands on rooftops and sent huge waves that breached a seawall in Manila Bay. Nesat also pummeled southern China and was downgraded to a tropical storm just before churning into northern Vietnam on Friday afternoon, where flood warnings were issued and 20,000 people evacuated.
In the rice-growing province of Bulacan north of Manila, hundreds of residents in flooded Calumpit town remained trapped on rooftops in four villages for the fourth day, many of them desperately waving for help. Rescuers aboard rubber boats could not reach them because of narrow alleyways. Two air force helicopters would be deployed yesterday to drop water and food packs to the marooned villagers, officials said.
Calumpit Mayor James de Jesus pleaded for more help from the national government.
“The ones waving for help are the ones who need to be rescued first because they have elderly people and children with them,” de Jesus told ABS-CBN TV network. “We have a very big problem here ... we’re facing a long flooding.”
Benito Ramos, a retired army general who heads the Office Civil Defense, said floodwater was receding in many areas, but freshly dumped rains by Nalgae may flow down from the mountainous north to the central Luzon provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga, which act like a catch basin. Some officials said water released from nearby dams have exacerbated the flood.
Ramos said many rescuers have not slept for days, including himeself, but were elated to see help from many private groups and provinces unaffected by the typhoons.
“Their resiliency is being tested, but many people are still smiling and waving,” Ramos told reporters by telephone from Calumpit, where he was overseeing rescue work. “It’s grace under pressure.”
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