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Floods inundate Philippine capital as deadly typhoon prompts calls for climate action...
Much of the Philippine capital remained underwater Thursday after deadly Typhoon Gaemi worsened torrential monsoon rains that lashed the country, trapping thousands of people in rising flood waters and causing widespread damage.
Continuous heavy rains, massive flooding, and landslides across the Philippines killed at least 13 people and displaced more than 600,000, and an oil tanker capsized off the country’s coast during strong winds and high waves, Philippine authorities said Thursday.
Unlike in Taiwan, the typhoon – known locally as Carina – didn’t make landfall in the Philippines, but its powerful outer bands dumped more than 300 mm (12 inches) of rain in the Manila region and parts of the main island Luzon, prompting officials to declare a “state of calamity” in the capital on Wednesday and evacuate tens of thousands of people.
Video and images from Manila show people wading through chest-deep water and some clinging precariously to overhead power lines as major roads turned into rivers. Families with children wrapped in towels or plastic ponchos huddled together on dinghies as disaster response teams rescued them from flooded houses.
Some parts of Metro Manila – home to 13 million people – have reported floods as high as one-story buildings, with some residents spotted waiting for rescue on roofs, according to the official Philippine News Agency.
In Rizal province’s Cainta, east of the capital, floodwaters were still around waist-level on Thursday, according to local councilor Ben Ramirez Narag.
“No one is prepared for this, even though we anticipated the typhoon, we could not have predicted the scale of rainfall,” he said.
His team was delivering supplies to evacuation centers and assessing damage to infrastructure, he added.
The southwest monsoon, supercharged by the typhoon, is still causing misery and destruction in the Philippines even after Gaemi moved north and made landfall in Taiwan early Thursday as the equivalent of a Category 3 major hurricane in the Atlantic.
Heavy rainfall, gusty winds, and a dangerous storm surge killed at least two people and injured nearly 300 others in Taiwan’s northeast, according to the Central Emergency Operations Center.
Taiwan remained largely shut down for a second day Thursday with flights canceled and financial markets, schools, and offices closed as heavy rainfall continued to pummel the island. Some mountainous regions have reported up to 1,219 mm (48 inches) of rain.