Floods, landslides and accidents driven by a nine-day downpour equivalent to more than a month’s worth of rain in some areas have killed at least 16 people in the northern Philippines, rescuers said Monday.
The rains, exacerbated by tropical storms, have led to school and government office closures across the main island of Luzon and flooding in the streets of the capital Manila.
Seven of the deaths occurred in the resort of Baguio, as a rain-drenched mountainside collapsed on three houses, city rescuer Esther Banawe told AFP. Three people remain unaccounted for.
“Rescue efforts are continuing, but they are doing it manually because of the heavy rain,” she said, adding that work was being supervised by a designated safety officer for fear of further landslides.
State weather forecaster Dan Villamil said rains in the vacation town, four hours north of the capital, were already 47% higher than normal for the whole month.
“The rainfall recorded for August 1-9 was highest in Baguio, with an accumulated 1,413.2 millimeters (56 inches),” he said, adding the city’s typical downpour for the month was 963.2 millimeters.
Parts of Metro Manila had recorded rain equivalent to about 90% of a typical August, he added.
Landslides killed six other people elsewhere on Luzon, while another drowned, one was hit by a falling tree, and one was electrocuted, according to a civil defense office tally.
While heavy rain continued to fall Monday evening, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon told a news conference that floodwaters were receding.
“Our interventions are continuing, but we really need to fix the years and decades’ worth of faulty flood mitigation interventions,” Dizon told reporters, referencing a scandal over bogus flood-control projects that have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt, and the archipelago is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, putting millions of people in disaster-prone areas in a state of constant poverty.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather more frequent, prolonged and intense.