Heavy flooding hits parts of Davao City after 3-hour rain

SWEPT AWAY A resident on Thursday checks the vehicles swept away by floods that hit Samantha Homes Subdivision at Barangay Bago Gallera in Davao City on Wednesday night. —BING GONZALES

DAVAO CITY—Three to four hours of continuous heavy downpour on Wednesday night spawned floods that hit Talomo and Tugbok districts here, prompting Mayor Sebastian Duterte to suspend classes at all levels in at least seven villages on Thursday.

The floods affected 127 families, many of them forced to seek safety on the rooftops or upper floors of their homes. Among the worst hit villages were Bago Gallera, Bago Aplaya, Talomo Proper, Matina Aplaya, Ma-a and Baliok in Talomo district; and Barangay Sto. Niño in Tugbok.

In Samantha Homes Subdivision in Bago Gallera, floodwaters moved cars away from their parking spaces. Owners found them several meters away along with all sorts of debris.

City streets were flooded at the height of the downpour deep Wednesday night. But the following day and hours after the rains stopped, about a kilometer-stretch of MacArthur Highway from Tulip Drive in Matina here had turned into a virtual waterway as water took long to subside.

Cardino Triffon, a jeepney driver, said it was the worst flooding since the road had been repaired and elevated the previous year.

“We were surprised because this area had already been elevated, we thought it would put an end to its history of flooding but last night, the water level reached as high as the [jeepney] flooring. We were the only ones that remained since smaller cars and sedans had been stranded down the road,” he told the Inquirer in Cebuano.

Close to midnight on Wednesday, the Davao City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) noted the increased water level in Lipadas River along the Barangay Crossing Bayabas channel in Toril district.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, the operation center of the CDRRMO continued monitoring flooded areas and the situation in the city’s rivers and waterways because of the weather disturbance caused by the easterlies and localized thunderstorms.