After the flood, mud basically and a hell of a mess. What happened was that a combination of weather systems collided in the mountains and a wall of water arrived n Davao looking for the sea. Instead it found over worked and blocked drains and high tide. The exceptional volume of water flooded our local area here in Bangkal.
People were evacuated to our local basketball court for the night and people scrambled to save their possessions. Like always in a flood.
We were lucky for sure as the water level reached to 1 street only away from us and went to have a look yesterday just less than 24 hours after the flood.
There was a big mess and a clear up was in operation, but it will take time and basically speaking there is nowhere for the mud to go to. Ironically rain is needed to help clear the mud.
I saw food and basic supplies being delivered to squatter area nearby which was hit hard by the flood, good to see rescue services in operation. Actually, in the Philippines, these emergency rescue measures are very well organised, the mayors office gets involved and rescue and medical services are on hand with follow up practical help, the mayor here is a big supporter of poorer people who are always the ones to suffer the most in these situations, why? Because they live in marginal areas like coastal or mountainous areas where natural disasters strike hardest, mudslides and flooding being the most common natural mishaps.
Photos shown are of a typical muddy street scene. A car which shows if you look carefully the line on the window where the rainwater got to, which is the windscreen height. The squatter area where supplies were being delivered and a fire for cooking was just being lit. Also another squatter area where piles of household goods have been stacked and rescued from the floods.
I went to the court to see what was happening there but the people had returned home and there was a poxy basketball game in progress, so, i guess the immediate emergency is over. For sure with this volume of rain it can happen again any time. (have trouble with the letter i on our keyboard, but just went through editing spelling mistakes, sure there are many more....but ....never mind)
2 comments:
Rick, a very interesting event for us to have a look at, but grief for the locals, glad you were lucky, i suppose it comes down to that sometimes. Cheers
Andy
yes thats right very much a grief thing, loads of grief. I didn't put too much thought into flooding before we moved here but afterwards, yes it started to concern me and i reckon (more by luck than judgement) i think we are ok....the position of the house and we are also slightly elevated...anyway another bit of luck
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