Residents in a city in the northern Philippines on Tuesday (October 20) cleared out debris from their houses after a typhoon tore across the northern Luzon Island, killing at least nine people and displacing thousands.
Koppu, now a tropical storm after being downgraded from a category 4 typhoon, moved slowly north on Tuesday, the state weather bureau said.
Officials fear the death toll may rise after Typhoon “Lando” tore through the main island of Luzon on Sunday (October 18) leaving several remote towns and villages isolated due to flash floods and toppled trees and boulders blocking roads. Power was down in many areas.
Residents at Cabanatuan City, one of the flooded areas in the rice-producing Nueva Ecija province, cleared mud from their houses after water subsided overnight.
Analiza De Leon, a resident who lived in a one storey house, was surprised by how high the floodwaters rose.
“Our house was flooded to the top. This was the first time that the water rose that high. Back then, we just stood on the roof of our house, but now we couldn’t and we had to go somewhere else since we risked getting trapped,” she said.
The local government said strong rains and water coming from the mountains came rushing down plains and valleys, overflowing a nearby river and flooding villages in Nueva Ecija.
Cabanatuan City Social Welfare Department chief Helen Bagasao said there were still about 600 evacuees staying at temporary shelters as some low-lying villages near the river were still flooded.
“There is really a big thing that should be done, in terms of dredging and de-silting all the river ways, water ways here in Cabanatuan City,” she said, noting how the soil and debris from the mountains have trickled to the province’s rivers.
Nearly 183,000 people felt the impact of the typhoon, of whom more than 65,000 had been evacuated from low-lying and landslide-prone areas, the disaster agency said. About 6,000 people were stranded in various ports across the main Luzon island.
The national disaster agency said two people died from falling trees and a toppled concrete wall. The coast guard said seven people died at sea.
An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year. (Reuters)
