Floods hit Northern Luzon

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Whirling heavy rains swept across wide parts of Northern Luzon yesterday, dumping more water into already inundated villages in different provinces. In Central Luzon alone, at least 247 baran-gays are flooded.

In Pampanga, a three-year-old boy in Candaba town drowned, while in Tarlac, at least 2,607 residents were forced to flee their flooded homes.

In Bulacan, Roel Agustin, of the provincial disaster coordinating council, cited initial reports that heavy flooding has destroyed about 554 hectares of ricelands in nine of 10 towns where floodwaters continued to swell as of afternoon yesterday amid continuing heavy rains.

Hundreds of commuters were stranded in Carranglan, Nueva Ecija after the highway was cut by heavy landslides the other night.

At least 3,000 pieces of bread and six boxes of sardines were brought to the site for the stranded commuters even as government engineers began clearing the road of debris.

"The weather is really fearsome. The heavy drops of rain are even swirling," said Evelyn Manalo, regional spokesman of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The STAR reached Manalo in this city where Mayor Oscar Rodriguez supervised the operations of two pumping stations to siphon off the rising floodwaters downtown into a local river.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has dispatched two dump trucks loaded with hundreds of sandbags to Barangay Mandasig in Candaba, Pampanga.

Two rescue teams from the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion under the Northern Luzon Command arrived with two rescue vehicles and two rubber boats for emergency use.

Chief Superintendent Vidal Querol, Central Luzon police director, said 15 of Pampanga’s 22 towns are flooded.

Hardest-hit are the towns of Guagua where all 23 barangays are flooded; Macabebe with 19; Masantol with 17; Lubao and Sasmuan, both with 12.

Also flooded in Pampanga are seven barangays in Minalin, six in Apalit, seven in Sta. Ana, four in Bacolor, nine in Sto. Tomas, five in Mexico, 11 in Arayat, and seven in Sta. Rita.

Querol, who heads the regional disaster coordinating council (RDCC), said 10 Tarlac towns are also heavily flooded. Portions of the national highway in La Paz town and San Sebastian in Tarlac City were impassable to all types of vehicles due to floodwaters.

According to the RDCC, the floods have affected 780 families or 4,731 people in 16 ba-rangays in Cabanatuan City, while at least 615 families or 2,519 people in San Clemente, Tarlac have been evacuated.

In Bataan, the DSWD said heavy flooding affected 1,810 families in 14 barangays in Hermosa town alone.

In Bulacan, Agustin said 5,546 families or 29,025 people in 56 barangays in the towns of Bocaue, Bulacan, Guiguinto, Hagonoy, Malolos, Marilao, Meycauayan, Obando, San Ildefonso and San Miguel, were affected. Hardest-hit were 12 villages in Hagonoy and 11 in San Miguel.

Agustin said rising floods have submerged 177 hectares of ricelands in Malolos, 100 in Bustos, 100 in Bulacan town, 89 in Balagtas, 37 in Pulilan, 29 in Baliuag, 10 in Bocaue, six in Plaridel and three in Paombong.

Meanwhile, more than a hundred low-lying villages in La Union and Pangasinan are also flooded, some of them about waist-deep.

Floodwaters in Pangasinan rose by several feet after excess water was released from the Binga and Ambuklao dams.

Continuous heavy rains also swelled rivers and flooded major roads in Benguet, where authorities have alerted villagers about possible landslides. — With Ric Sapnu, James Mananghaya, Benjie Villa, Eva Visperas, Cesar Ramirez, Vic Alhambra Jr., Artemio Dumlao, Charlie Lagasca and Jack Castaño III