‘Crising,’ ‘Dante,’ ‘Emong’ combined death toll at 26
Tropical Storm “Emong” (international name: Co-may) made its way to the northern tip of the country on Friday but its impact, combined with the enhanced southwest monsoon and the successive Typhoons “Crising” (Wipha) and “Dante” (Francisco) this week, left a trail of destruction in many parts of Luzon where at least 26 deaths were reported.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) on Friday said nine deaths were recorded in Metro Manila, which was battered by heavy rains and widespread flooding. Four deaths were reported in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) while Western Visayas, Negros Island Region and Northern Mindanao each had three deaths. Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan), Davao, Central Luzon and Caraga regions each recorded a fatality.
A second ‘Emong’
They included a victim who was electrocuted in Bulacan and two others pinned to death by toppled trees in Camiguin and Surigao del Norte.
The NDRRMC tally also showed eight people were reported missing in Western Visayas, Central Luzon, Metro Manila and Calabarzon.
Emong was the fifth weather disturbance to hit the Philippines since the rainy season started last month.
It struck northern Luzon on Thursday, raising storm warning to Signal No. 4, including western Pangasinan which experienced devastating force, reviving traumatic memories of the storm, also named “Emong,” that ravaged the province in May 2009.
It made landfall in the town of Agno in Pangasinan with maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 165 kph.
Church damaged
Emong tore through the Pangasinan towns of Agno, Anda, Bolinao, Burgos, Dasol, Mabini and Sual and Alaminos City, ripping off roofs, uprooting trees, cutting power lines and destroying homes.
“Emong was fierce and destructive,” Precious Cayaon of Barangay Germinal, Bolinao, told the Inquirer. “Roofs flew off churches and homes, walls and windows peeled away.”
Even the historic St. James the Great Parish Church lost a portion of its roof on the eve of the town fiesta in his honor.
Parishioners manually bailed out rainwater just to prepare the church for festivities.
In Agno, where the typhoon first made landfall, the local Catholic church was damaged, while Bolinao’s Baptist church lost its entire roof.
A tree fell on Cayaon’s grandmother’s house, severely damaging it.
Though Cayaon’s own apartment was spared, she said the howling wind and crashing debris were terrifying.
In Alaminos City, resident Melchor Orpilla likened the typhoon’s fury to “a hundred horses rampaging through the house.”
Orpilla remembered a similar terror during Emong in 2009, when a massive tree nearly crushed his vehicle. This year’s Emong added torrential rain to the chaos, he noted.
In Dasol, some churches sheltered evacuees who could no longer be accommodated in official evacuation centers. Local governments worked quickly to clear debris and reopen roads the next morning.
Residents across affected towns called for the retirement of the name Emong, which they say carries a “legacy of trauma.”
“Emong feels like a ghost from the past,” said Jherwan Copa of Bolinao.
Copa recalled the 2009 typhoon vividly: roaring winds, crashing waves, rising seawater, and even two waterspouts forming near his coastal village. “It felt like a scene from a disaster movie—trees falling, roofs flying, people crying, homes gone in a blink,” he said.
Out of PAR today
In its 5 p.m. weather bulletin on Friday, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said Emong’s center was estimated over the coastal waters of Sabtang, Batanes. It was moving north northeastward at 40 kph.
Emong, which had weakened as it move northeastward, was intensifying seasonal monsoon rains that had swamped a large swath of the country for more than a week.
Pagasa’s forecast showed Emong to be out of the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) by 2 p.m. Saturday, at 570 km north northeast of Itbayat, Batanes.
On Friday, Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal No. 2 was hoisted over Batanes and Babuyan Islands while Ilocos Norte, Apayao and mainland Cagayan was under Signal No. 1.
4.5M affected
A report from the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said more than 4.5 million people, belonging to over 1.3 million families, have been affected by heavy rains and floods spawned by Crising, Dante and Emong, and the southwest monsoon this week.
The weather disturbances impacted 4,530 barangays nationwide, displacing around 174,000 individuals, or roughly 50,000 families now staying in nearly 1,000 evacuation centers nationwide, according to OCD deputy spokesperson Diego Mariano.
A total of 84 areas in the Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Western Visayas and Metro Manila have declared a state of calamity due to the widespread impact of the storms and enhanced monsoon rains. The declaration speeds emergency funds and freezes the prices of commodities, including rice.
Mariano said Central Luzon was the hardest-hit area, with more than 2.2 million people affected. However, he noted that for Emong alone, the hardest-hit areas were La Union and parts of Pangasinan.
As high as 6 feet
In Bulacan, massive evacuations of residents were conducted in several towns and cities, as floodwater went as high as 1.82 meters (6 feet), prompting at least seven towns and cities to place their localities in a state of calamity.
In Zambales, the agricultural damage caused by the weather disturbances reached at least P15 million, with 2,315.53 hectares of rice fields in 13 towns flooded, affecting 2,460 farmers, the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist reported Friday.
Agricultural losses in Oriental Mindoro was at P189.6 million as of Friday, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office said.
Power outages hit parts of Baguio City and Benguet province as early as 2 a.m. on Friday as Emong battered the Cordillera.
The Baguio government recorded 33 incidents of landslides on Thursday. Work crews on Friday responded to another rockslide at Camp 6 along Kennon Road. —REPORTS FROM JASON SIGALES, GABRYELLE DUMALAG, YOLANDA SOTELO, CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE, MADONNA VIROLA, VINCENT CABREZA, DELFIN MALLARI JR., APRIL MIER-MANJARES, JOANNA ROSE AGLIBOT, IRE JOE V.C. LAURENTE AND AP
