by William B. Depasupil Reporter and Rhaydz B. Barcia, Manila Times - A SLOW-MOVING tropical storm, “Juaning,” left at least 27 people dead and nine missing and displaced more than half-a-million as it dumped enormous amounts of rain that caused major flooding and landslides across the country’s main island of Luzon, authorities said on Wednesday.
The storm (internationally Nock-ten and named after a Laotian bird) was expected to cause more damage in mountainous northern areas of Luzon on Wednesday, while also bringing heavy rain to the Philippines’ premier region of Metro Manila, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said.
The Department of Education also on Wednesday suspended classes in the elementary and high-school levels in Baguio City in Mountain Province and Benguet province, both in Northern Luzon.
The Senate in Manila closed for the day “due to (Juaning),” a text message from a staff of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said.
Juaning, which struck Bicol Region in the eastern part of the country on Tuesday, killed at least 27 people, with another nine missing, Benito Ramos, the chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told reporters.
Five of the victims died as a landslide buried parts of their village.
About 645,000 people were also forced to flee their flooded homes in the coastal Bicol provinces of Albay and Camarines Sur, where the storm first made landfall, according to Ramos.
“Those two provinces are under water,” he said earlier.
Albay topped the casualty list with 9 dead, Camarines Norte, 5; Catanduanes, 4; and Camarines Sur, 2.
Camarines Norte and Catanduanes provinces are also in Bicol Region.
The entire province of Albay was placed under a state of calamity also on Wednesday after evidently being hit hardest by Juaning.
Its governor, Joey Salceda, earlier on Tuesday blamed Pagasa for its allegedly inaccurate weather forecast for the province.
Pagasa officials supposedly had reported that the tropical storm would only trigger rainfall in the province.
They elevated the alert signal over Bicol when Juaning was already battering the entire Bicol Region, particularly Albay.
Electric posts and coconut and hardwood trees were felled by the tropical storm across the province but Pagasa hoisted only Storm Signal No. 1 over the province despite strong winds and heavy rains that battered Albay for more than 16 hours.
The entire province has remained without electricity since Tuesday.
Power outages were reported in Catanduanes and Sorsogon, another Bicol Region province.
Ramos said that the government was waiting for the skies to clear and the seas to calm down before sending emergency supplies by air and water to those provinces.
“We can’t use Army trucks because the roads are flooded,” he added.
The management council said that dozens of flights had been canceled because of the storm.
The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said that at least six domestic flights to and from Manila and other parts of the country were canceled also on Wednesday.
Cebu Pacific scrapped its flights from Manila to Virac, Catanduanes, and vice versa—5J 821and 5J
822.
Manila to Cauayan City, Isabela, and vice versa—5J 196 and 197— were also canceled.
Air Philippines Express canceled flights from Manila to Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, and vice versa—2P 014 and 2P 015.
Flag-carrier Philippine Airlines said that its flights were proceeding normally with zero cancellations even as Juaning was expected to cross Central Luzon on Wednesday afternoon.
Juaning had initially been expected to pass much closer to Manila, the nation’s sprawling capital of 12 million people, and schools were closed across the city also on Wednesday as it prepared for heavy rains.
Ramos said that the tropical storm was following an erratic course and that the latest forecast showed that the Philippine capital and other densely populated areas would be spared the worst of Juaning.
“It did not follow its projected track,” he noted.
Still, the new course would still mean that about four million people in the mountainous areas of Northern Luzon were under threat and that landslides there were a danger.
Pagasa forecaster Juanito Galang said that wind strength and rain volumes usually dissipated when a cyclone hit a wall of mountains, instead of going over flat land.
“But the danger there is, if rain falls on a mountaintop, it will rush down slopes. The tendency is for the water to go down as flash floods or cause landslides,” Galang explained.
“They’re deadlier than ordinary floods because they occur suddenly and you are caught unaware,” he said.
Ramos warned that all areas within 500 kilometers (310 miles) of the eye of the storm, which includes Manila, should expect rain until it moved out to the South China Sea on Thursday.
An average of 20 storms and typhoons, some of them deadly, hit the Philippines every year.
Storms also killed 48 people in Luzon in May and June.
Unusually heavy rains killed, too, 42 people last month in southern Mindanao, an area that is normally spared typhoons and storms.
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said that at least 12 fishermen were rescued while 20 others were still missing after a fishing boat capsized between Masbate and Sibuyan Island also on Wednesday.
It added that FB Hope Christy had been carrying the 32 fishermen when it went down.
The PCG urged the public to report to its hotlines 527-3877 and 527-8481, and hot text 0917-PCGDOTC all maritime incidents and violations of safety regulations including overloading.
Also in the nation’s capital, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority also on Wednesday again lifted the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program, a number-coding scheme, as authorities braced for Juaning.
But the suspension of coding scheme would not cover Makati City, the agency said.
As Juaning headed to Northern Luzon, Pagasa said that it has spotted a newly developed weather
disturbance outside the Philippine area of responsibility that it expected to enter the country this weekend.
But its forecaster Galang said that the tropical depression was still far from the country for it to have an effect on local weather.
Meanwhile, he added that Juaning was also expected to exit the country by Thursday morning but that did not mean that the weather in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon would improve.
The tropical storm would enhance the southwest monsoon, which would bring more rains to the region, Galang explained.
As of 4 p.m. of Wednesday, Juaning was located 60 kilometers northeast of Baguio City packing maximum winds of 85 kilometers per hour near the center and gustiness of up to 100 kph.
It was moving northwest at 17 kph and was also expected to leave land Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
With reports from Jefferson Antiporda, Mayvelin U. Caraballo, Jovee Marie N. De La Cruz, Jaime Pilapil, Thom H. Picana And Sammy Martin
