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.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS