CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—The Pampanga River Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (PRFFWC) on Sunday advised communities and disaster risk reduction and management councils in Central Luzon to be on alert for possible flash floods, river swelling and landslides.
The PRFFWC, a unit under the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), sent out the advisory as water levels in the river and its tributaries rose, following rains since Friday, said Hilton Hernando, PRFFWC chief.
The last time the Pampanga River overflowed was when Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” battered the region more than a month ago, flooding at least 1,689 villages for almost two weeks and killing 48 people.
The Pampanga River, the main drainer of Central Luzon, takes in water from 30 river systems fed by watersheds from the Sierra Madre mountain ranges and in Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Bulacan.
Pagasa said widespread rains over eastern Luzon were expected due to a shallow low pressure area estimated at 50 kilometers east southeast of Infanta, Quezon, and embedded along the intertropical convergence zone affecting the country.
As of 11 a.m. Sunday, Hernando said water levels had yet to reach alarming levels in 18 monitoring stations except in Candaba, Pampanga, where it was recorded at 4.3 meters. The alert level in this area is 5 m.
Rainfall in the basin was recorded at 19.6 millimeters at 8 a.m. Sunday.
The tributaries expected to experience increased water levels were the lower Pampanga River, Rio Chico, Candaba Swamp area, Guagua River Basin area-Abacan, and the rivers of Porac-Gumain, Pasac-Guagua and Pasig-Potrero.
Pampanga Governor Lilia Pineda has sent teams to relay PRFFWC’s information to riverside communities, especially in San Luis and San Simon towns where old dikes and levees are weak.
A proposal by the Regional Development Council (RDC) to install flood forecasting and warning systems in each of the seven Central Luzon provinces has yet to take off the ground, a check by the Inquirer showed.
City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, RDC chair, said the concept was for local governments to partner with Pagasa in operating and maintaining the stations so alerts and other information are immediately relayed to communities.
As of October, national government agencies and local governments had spent P135 million in aid to victims of recent floods that were considered the worst that hit Central Luzon since 1972.
The disaster left 2,399 families homeless and destroyed P11.6 billion of crops, mostly rice.
In Isabela, residents of at least 100 low-lying villages in the province have started preparing their belongings in case they are alerted to evacuate while the Magat Dam continues to release water.
The province has been experiencing heavy rains since Friday, prompting dam administrators in Ramon town to release water through three spill gates.
Saturnino Tenedor, dam instrumentation section head, said water level at the reservoir on Sunday was recorded at 192.92 meters above sea level (masl), almost reaching its 193 masl critical level.
He said heavy rains have been recorded along the dam’s watershed areas in the villages of Halong, Magat, Santo Domingo and Dumayup.
The dam has been generating 350 megawatts of power for the Luzon grid and providing irrigation water to at least 80,000 hectares of farmlands in Isabela, Ifugao and parts of Quirino and Cagayan.—With a report from Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon