Typhoon "Ondoy" brought rain continuously the whole day yesterday in Manila where I got stranded on my way back to Marinduque. It triggered the worst flood to hit the Metro causing widespread blackouts from around 3:00 pm. Power has not returned up to now in Manila but certain areas in Quezon City did not suffer from the power outage. People were stranded on rooftops and the massive flooding paralyzed business and transportation. Government has declared a state of calamity in Metro Manila and 25 Luzon provinces including Marinduque.
According to reports, Metro Manila's average rainfall for September is 391.7 millimeters, but for the first six hours "Ondoy" had dumped 341 millimeters of rainfall. Most of Manila residents are used to floods but the sudden surge of floodwaters and the speed by which the waters buried roads and residential communities to as high as 5 meters came as a surprise. Up to this morning in Pasig, people are still crossing through neck deep waters in major thoroughfares, as there were simply too many to be evacuated.
Today the sun is back, the rain has stopped, but in many places such as Dimasalang, Espana, Del Monte and other areas in Quezon City people who evacuated at the height of the flooding have returned to their homes to go back to their normal routines.
Above photo tells it all, courtesy of tipidpc.com
