Manila: Floodwaters reaching more than four meters high swamped thousands of houses in the storm-battered northern Philippines on Tuesday after rivers overflowed following heavy rain and a dam release.
Typhoon Man-yi drenched swaths of the Philippines over the weekend, swelling the Cagayan river and tributaries, and forcing the release of water from Magat Dam.
The Cagayan broke its banks, spilling water over already sodden farmland and communities, affecting tens of thousands of people.
Buildings, lamp posts and trees poked through a lake of brown water in Tuguegarao city in Cagayan province where provincial disaster official Ian Valdepenas said floodwaters reached more than four meters (14 feet) in some places.
“We experienced very heavy rains two days ago, but the flood just started to rise when Magat Dam started releasing huge volumes of water,” Valdepenas told AFP.
“Plus, our land is already saturated because of the consecutive typhoons hitting the area.”
Man-yi was the sixth major storm in a month to strike the Philippines, which have left at least 171 people dead and thousands homeless, as well as wiped out crops and livestock.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Roofs of houses
In the neighboring province of Isabela, Jun Montereal of the Ilagan city disaster preparedness committee said 30,000 people were still affected by flooding.
But the situation was slowly improving.
“The flood is subsiding now little by little, it’s slower because the land is already saturated but we are way past the worst,” Montereal told AFP.
“We are really hoping that the weather will continue to be fair so the water can go down. I think the water will completely subside in three days,” he said.
“I can now see the roofs of houses that I wasn’t able to see before because of the floods.”
Carlo Ablan, who helps oversee operations at Magat Dam, said three gates were open as of Tuesday morning to release water from the dam.
“If the weather continues to be good, we are expecting that we will only have one gate open this afternoon,” Ablan said.
Ablan said flooding in Tuguegarao city was not only caused by water from Magat Dam — other tributaries of the Cagayan river were also likely to blame.
Valdepenas said authorities in Tuguegarao were waiting for floodwaters to subside more before sending people back to their homes.
“This might start subsiding within today,” he said.
More than a million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi, which struck the Philippines as a super typhoon before significantly weakening as it swept over the mountains of the main island of Luzon.
Man-yi dumped heavy rain, smashed flimsy buildings, knocked out power and claimed at least eight lives.
Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
Floods strike thousands of houses in northern Philippines
https://arab.news/8ua4z
Floods strike thousands of houses in northern Philippines
- Typhoon Man-yi drenched swaths of the Philippines over the weekend
- Man-yi was the sixth major storm in a month to strike the Philippines
Second death in Minneapolis crackdown heaps pressure on Trump
- Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city
MINNEAPOLIS: The Trump administration faced intensifying pressure Sunday over its mass immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, after federal agents shot dead a second US citizen and graphic cell phone footage again contradicted officials’ immediate description of the incident.
Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city, less than three weeks after an immigration officer fired on Renee Good, also 37, killing her in her car.
President Donald Trump’s administration quickly claimed that Pretti had intended to harm the federal agents — as it did after Good’s death — pointing to a pistol it said was discovered on him.
However, video shared widely on social media and verified by US media showed Pretti never drawing a weapon, with agents firing around 10 shots at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.
The video further inflamed ongoing protests in Minneapolis against the presence of federal agents, with around 1,000 people participating in a demonstration Sunday.
After top officials described Pretti as an “assassin” who had assaulted the agents, Pretti’s parents issued a statement Saturday condemning the administration’s “sickening lies” about their son.
Asked Sunday what she would say to Pretti’s parents, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: “Just that I’m grieved for them.”
“I truly am. I can’t even imagine losing a child,” she told Fox News show “The Sunday Briefing.”
She said more clarity would come as an investigation progresses.
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also said an investigation was necessary to get a full understanding of the killing.
Asked if agents had already removed the pistol from Pretti when they fired on him, Blanche said: “I do not know. And nobody else knows, either. That’s why we’re doing an investigation.”
‘Joint’ probe
Their comments came after multiple senators from Trump’s Republican Party called for a thorough probe into the killing, and for cooperation with local authorities.
“There must be a full joint federal and state investigation,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said.
The Trump administration controversially excluded local investigators from a probe into Good’s killing.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz posed a question directly to the president during a press briefing Sunday, asking: “What’s the plan, Donald Trump?“
“What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state?“
Thousands of federal immigration agents have been deployed to heavily Democratic Minneapolis for weeks, after conservative media reported on alleged fraud by Somali immigrants.
Trump has repeatedly amplified the racially tinged accusations, including on Sunday when he posted on his Truth Social platform: “Minnesota is a Criminal COVER UP of the massive Financial Fraud that has gone on!“
The city, known for its bitterly cold winters, has one of the country’s highest concentrations of Somali immigrants.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison pushed back against Trump’s claim, telling reporters “it’s not about fraud, because if he sent people who understand forensic accounting, we’d be having a different conversation. But he’s sending armed masked men.”
Court order
Since “Operation Metro Surge” began, many residents have carried whistles to notify others of the presence of immigration agents, while sometimes violent skirmishes have broken out between the officers and protesters.
Local authorities have sued the federal government seeking a court order to suspend the operation, with a first hearing set for Monday.
Recent polling has shown voters increasingly upset with Trump’s domestic immigration operations, as videos of masked agents seizing people off sidewalks — including children — and dramatic stories of US citizens being detained proliferate.
Barack and Michelle Obama on Sunday forcefully condemned Pretti’s killing, saying in a statement it should be a “wake-up call” that core US values “are increasingly under assault.”
The former president and first lady blasted Trump and his government as seeming “eager to escalate the situation.”
