Flood toll: 41 dead, missing

Forty-one people have died or remain missing in the aftermath of four days of heavy rains and strong winds brought about by the southwest monsoon, the Office of Civil Defense at Camp Aguinaldo said yesterday.

Among the latest fatalities are a five-year-old boy in Pangasinan and a two-year-old girl in Bulacan.

Apart from Jake Sison, 5, of Barangay Angarian in Bugallon town, three others drowned in Pangasinan: Gerald Sison, 14, of Barangay Telbang in Alaminos City; Leopoldo Fernando, 16, of Barangay Umando in Malasigui town, and Nena Lopez, 54, of Barangay Turac, San Carlos City.

A fifth fatality, Carlito Navarro, 56, of Rizal Street, Dagupan City, was electrocuted.

The other victims are Kim Elperson, 2, of Barangay Balayong in Malolos, Bulacan, and Junel Guala, 11, of Orani, Bataan.

Floods have affected 16,672 families in 22 towns and three cities in Pangasinan and damaged crops in 3,871 farmlands which remained underwater yesterday.

Damage to crops and fishery resources have been estimated at P18.7 million.

More than 10,000 people have remained in evacuation centers in various provinces and cities in Central Luzon.

Pangasinan Gov. Victor Agbayani has ordered the provincial disaster coordinating council to deploy an engineering crew at the Gualsic-Caranglaan dike to protect the towns of Malasiqui and Alcala from rampaging floodwaters.

The most affected areas in Pangasinan are Urdaneta City and the towns of Calasiao, Bautista, Bugallon, Mangatarem, Urbiztondo, Malasiqui, San Fabian, Sta. Barbara, Bayambang, San Jacinto, San Manuel, Sta. Maria, Sison, Agulla, and Labrador.

In Dagupan City, the city disaster coordinating center has started relief operations in barangays which floodwaters had heavily damaged.

The Philippine National Red Cross chapter in Pangasinan has also started distributing relief goods to some 300 families in Barangays Warding and Managos in Bayambang town yesterday.

At least 583 barangays in 57 municipalities and three cities in Central Luzon have remained underwater following four days of heavy rains.

Flor Villar, regional director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, said some 67 houses were destroyed and 278 damaged in Central Luzon.

In Zambales, 32 houses were damaged, 29 in Bataan, two each in Pampanga and Tarlac, and one each in Bulacan and Olongapo City, she added.

In Pampanga, Gov. Lito Lapid handed out yesterday relief goods to flood victims in the towns of Minalta, Masantol, Sto. Tomas, Apalit, and San Simon.

Lapid said six coastal barangays in Minalta town are still underwater because of the overtapping of the Palaman dike, forcing the residents to reinforce it with sandbags.

In Tarlac, Gov. Jose Yap said rising floodwaters have damaged many roads, bridges, flood control projects and crops, causing damages estimated at P100 million.

Most of the damages occurred in Tarlac City and the towns of Gerona, Moncada, Paniqui, Camiling, Concepcion, and La Paz because of the overflowing of the Rio Chico and the Tarlac, Camiling and Sacobia Rivers.

Floodwaters destroyed 13 dikes, five municipal roads, and portions of the MacArthur Highway in Tarlac, according to retired Maj. Gen. Virgilio Florendo, head of the provincial disaster coordinating center.

At Clark Field in Pampanga, Jaime Sincioso, resident volcanologist of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), denied yesterday reports that a portion of Mt. Pinatubo’s crater lake had given way in the area of the Marunot River facing Botolan, Zambales. The lake is 956 meters above sea level.

Sincioso said the strong water current which the Aetas sighted in Bucao, Zambales Wednesday must have come from a watershed on the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo.

Sincioso said the absence of "secondary explosions" when rainwaters come into contact with hot materials in the volcanic slopes strongly indicates that lahar on the slopes has stabilized.

"Vegetation is now spreading in Mt. Pinatubo," he said. "Pyroclastic deposits have become well-desiccated and the gullies at the summit have become wide."

However, "less serious" lahar flows are still possible during "an extreme and unusually prolonged rainfall," he added.

Philvolcs Director Raymundo Punongbayan said the man-made channel which was dug up last year in the Marunot notch is strong enough to stop water draining from the lake.

"That channel is protected by natural huge boulders," he said.

Water from the lake is gushing at about .6 cubic meters per second to the Marunot River on the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo downward to the Bucao-Balin Baquero River system before heading for the South China Sea, he added. – Cesar Ramires, Eva de Leon, Ric Sapnu, Benjie Villa, Ding Cervantes, AFP