STILL FLOODED A boy wades through the flood at the back of the Los Baños municipal hall in Laguna. The town is along the Laguna de Bay.
MARICAR P. CINCO/INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON
Southwest monsoon rains enhanced by Typhoon “Karen” flooded nine villages in Bulacan and Pampanga, the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC) said in a report on Monday.
In Bulacan, the villages of Mandile, Ilog Bulo and Bagong Silang in San Miguel town were under a foot to three feet high of floodwater due to continuous rains. In Barangay Bayugo in Meycauayan City, the rains and high tide caused floodwater to rise to 1.5 feet.
In Pampanga, the rains on Saturday and Sunday worsened the floods caused by southwest monsoon-induced rains on Aug. 6 to 8 in the villages of Pandaras, San Nicolas, San Pedro, Sta. Lucia and Sta. Teresita in the southeastern side of the City of San Fernando. As of Monday, floodwater levels were from as low as six inches to a high of six feet.
This happened even as the Department of Public Works and Highways had already diverted the flow of water from the Gugu Creek to a revived channel in Sapang Labuan in Minalin town.
Strong rains in the first week of August flooded more 700 villages in low-lying areas and coastal communities in central Luzon. About 50 people died due mostly to drowning.
The region lost about P3 billion worth of roads, bridges, irrigation canals and crops.
The continuing floods prompted 289 families in Barangays Pandaras, San Nicolas, San Pedro and Sta. Lucia in San Fernando to stay in tents set up by the city government beside the city’s transport terminal.
The RDRRMC reported that as of 8 a.m. on Monday, the gates of the Ipo and Bustos dams in Bulacan had been closed. Gate 1 of Ipo Dam had released 47 cubic meters per second (cms) when the water neared the spilling level of 100.8 meters. Two gates of the Bustos Dam released 107 cms as water rose to 14.41 meters, the RDRRMC said. Reports from Tonette Orejas and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon