Policy Research Group   - Strategic Insight: Floods cause havoc in the Philippines

Floods cause havoc in the Philippines
================================================================================
editor on 29 September, 2009 05:03:00
 
MANILA — The weekend storm that has left  trail of destrucion is said to be
the worst  that Manila had experienced in nearly half a century. The death  toll
is put at 250. Many more deaths are expected  as thousands of Filipinos are 
trapped in their homes by floodwaters.
The storm poured a month’s worth of rain onto Manila in just 12 hours, the
government’s weather bureau said.
The Philippine government declared a “state of national calamity” in 27
provinces outside the capital.
Pasig City is one of the hardest-hit Manila suburbs where the heavily silted and
polluted Pasig River flows,
Officials said the storm had destroyed the homes of more than 435,000 residents
in the capital and in several provinces in the north.
More than 100,000 people displaced by the storm are now housed in roughly 200
evacuation centers.