| 15 killed, 270,000 leave homes as rains submerge Manila |
MANILA Deadly torrential rains submerged much of the Philippine capital and surrounding areas on Tuesday, forcing nearly 270,000 people to flee their homes with more flooding expected in the north of the country as a tropical storm passes through the region, officials said.
Officials said at least 15 people were killed on Tuesday and the bodies of nine members of one family were pulled from the earth after a landslide buried four houses in a northern Manila slum, said Darius Ramos, a district watchman who was monitoring the rescue effort. He said four people were rescued alive from the rubble.
Rescuers were still digging with shovels in search of more victims, although they were unsure how many were still missing, he added. Police reported four drowning deaths in the nearby province of Bulacan and two deaths in Batangas, with one person missing in Bataan. All three provinces were also hit by floods.
Steady rains for the past 10 days, killing more than 50 people, are set to continue until Wednesday, the Philippines weather bureau said, fuelled by tropical storm ‘Haikui’ in the Philippine Sea northeast of Taiwan. “It’s like Waterworld,” said Benito Ramos, head of the Philippines national disaster agency, referring to a Hollywood movie about a flooded world.
Schools, financial markets, and public and private offices were ordered shut, including outsourcing firms whose corporate clients are mainly from the US and Europe.
Disaster officials said over half of Manila was swamped by floods as high as three metres, worsened by a high tide and the release of water from dams in surrounding provinces.
President Benigno Aqu-ino, in an emergency meeting briefly interrupted by a power failure at the main army base in Manila, ord-ered officials to exert maximum effort to aid residents in flooded areas. Officials have deployed army troops, police and emergency workers with rubber boats and amphibious trucks.
The monsoon rains, which dumped about 300mm or three times the daily average of 80-100mm from late Monday to Tuesday, were the heaviest in three years, the weather bureau said.
Most major roads in Manila were inundated by knee- to waist-deep floodwaters. Some flights were delayed or cancelled. Power, water and communications in flooded areas were disrupted.
Some of the affected residents were marooned on the roofs of their houses.
“There are about 5,000 people here,” said Ester Ronabio, a public school teacher and volunteer in one of the temporary shelter areas in low-lying Marikina City in the eastern part of Manila. “We can’t control the flow of people.”
Agencies
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