BAGUIO CITY—The Cordillera office of the Office of Civil Defense and the local office of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said that Super Typhoon “Lando” brought to this area the highest rainfall level for a 24-hour period in the history of the region.
Andrew Alex Uy, OCD-CAR regional director, said that the 24-hour rainfall brought by Lando from 8 a.m. of Oct. 19 to 8 a.m. of Oct. 20 recorded the highest rainfall at 763 millimeters compared to the rainfall brought by Typhoon “Pepeng” in October 2009 and Tropical Cyclone Ineng in August this year.
“The over saturation of our soil, especially those in geologically hazardous areas, was the primary culprit on the occurrence of numerous landslides that claimed innocent lives and inflicted heavy damage on both public and private properties regionwide,” Uy stressed.
Records show that the 24-hour rainfall of Typhoon Pepeng was more than 680 millimeters while Tropical Cyclone Ineng brought to the regions estimated of over 500 millimeters of rainfall in one day.
From 8 a.m. of Oct. 18 to 8 a.m. of Oct. 19, Lando’s rainfall was recorded to be over 161 millimeters while its rainfall from 8 a.m. of Oct. 20 to 8 a.m. of Oct. 21 was 94 millimeters.
However, Lando’s total rainfall for three days which was registered to be over 1038 millimeters was not sufficient to overcome Pepeng’s accumulated rental of over 2,000 millimeters spread over a period of five days following its Fujiwara effect.
Uy explained the unpredictable weather condition and the stronger typhoons nowadays are the effects of climate change. The people must be ready to confront this through disaster mitigating measures to prevent loss of lives and damage to property.
The civil defense official reminded the public to continue taking precautions amidst the improvement of weather in order to lessen the impact of the over saturated mountain slopes to the safety of life and limb.