Manila, Philippines—Floodwaters submerged hundreds of houses in the northern Philippines on Monday after water released from a dam following Typhoon ‘Pepito’ (Man-yi) caused a major river to break its banks.
Packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 185 kilometers (115 miles) an hour, ‘Pepito’ slammed into Catanduanes island late Saturday, and the main island of Luzon on Sunday afternoon.
The sixth major storm to batter the Philippines in a month dumped heavy rain, smashed flimsy buildings, knocked out power and claimed at least eight lives.
The national weather service had warned of a “potentially catastrophic” impact from Man-yi, which was a super typhoon when it hit, but President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday it “wasn’t as bad as we feared.”
As people cleaned up on Monday, floods began hitting communities in the north after water from Magat Dam was released, causing the Cagayan river and some tributaries to overflow.
Rooftops could be seen poking through brown water in Ilagan city in Isabela province while buildings and roads near Tuguegarao city in Cagayan province were inundated.
“If Magat Dam continues to release water on all of its seven gates, Ilagan city might get erased from the map due to flooding,” Jun Montereal, chairman of the city’s disaster preparedness committee, told Agence France Presse (AFP), estimating 500 houses had been flooded.
“This is one of the gravest incidents that we have ever experienced because of the typhoon.”
Carlo Ablan, who helps oversee operations at the dam, said water was released after a “huge volume” of inflows due to rain from ‘Pepito.’
“If we won’t be releasing water, the worst possible scenario will be our dam would collapse and that will be a much bigger problem,” Ablan said.
