Manila submerged by monsoon floods

Nine die and thousands stranded in worst deluge since 2009.

Residents try to cross through floodwaters while others wait on the roofs of their houses after a river in Manila overflows.

MANILA // Relentless rains have submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital Manila, triggering a landslide that killed nine people and sending emergency crews scrambling yesterday to rescue tens of thousands of residents stranded by floods.

The deluge was the worst since 2009, when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods. It was set off by the seasonal monsoon that overflowed major dams and rivers in Manila and the surrounding provinces.

The capital and other parts of the country were saturated already from last week's Typhoon Saola, which battered Manila and the north for several days before blowing away on Friday. That storm was responsible for at least 53 deaths.

"It's like a water world," said Benito Ramos, the director of the government's disaster response agency. He said the rains had flooded 50 per cent of metropolitan Manila on Monday evening, and about 30 per cent remained under waist- or neck-deep waters yesterday.

He urged residents in areas prone to landslides and floods to move to evacuation centres, warning that because the soil is saturated, even a little rain could be dangerous.

"Now that it's getting dark, I would like to repeat, if the rains are heavy, you should be at the evacuation centres," he said, adding that rescue operations were more difficult at night and could put emergency workers at risk.

Manila's weather bureau said a tropical storm off the coast of eastern China had intensified the monsoon rains in the Philippines, which were forecast to last until tomorrow.

In Manila's suburban Quezon City, a landslide had hit a row of shanties perched below a hill, burying nine people, said to Mr Ramos.

Army troops and police dug frantically in an attempt to save those buried, including four children, as relatives and neighbours wept.

The bodies of all the victims were recovered. Some were found near an entombed shanty's door, where they had apparently tried to flee.

"My wife, children and grandchild are down there," said Jessie Bailon as he watched rescuers dig into a muddy mound where his shanty once stood.

Nicanor Bartolome, the national police chief, visited the scene and ordered all other slum dwellers to be evacuated from the area.

Rescuers dangled on ropes to help move children and other residents to safety from flooded homes across the city. Many residents trapped in their houses called radio and television stations pleading for help.

"We need to be rescued," Josephine Cruz told DZMM radio as water rose around her house in Quezon City. She said she was trapped in her two-story house with 11 other people, including her 83-year-old mother. "We can't get out because the floodwaters are now higher than people," she added.

The ABC-CBN television network reported receiving frantic calls from people whose relatives were trapped by the deluge, many of them left without food for almost a week.

They included a pregnant woman with a baby who wanted to be rescued from a roof and about 55 people who had scrambled to the third floor of a Quezon City house as water rose below them.

Vehicles and even heavy lorries struggled to navigate water-clogged roads, where hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded. Many cars were stuck in the muddy waters.

The La Mesa dam, which supplies water to the 12 million people in the capital, spilt excess water yesterday into the rivers flowing into Quezon City, as well as the neighbourhoods of Malabon, Valenzuela and Caloocan, where several villages were submerged.

Along the swollen Marikina River, nearly 20,000 residents have been moved away from the riverbanks but many others asked to be rescued. Del de Guzmán, the mayor, pleaded for patience and said overwhelmed rescue teams would try to reach everyone.

President Benigno Aquino called an emergency meeting of cabinet officials and disaster-response agencies. He ordered officials to make sure all residents were accounted for in submerged villages and discussed how flooded hospitals could be helped.