Struggling through the storms

About 3 million people living in the rain-soaked Cordillera mountains faced the threat of landslide after Typhoon Nalgae lashed the Philippines last week, killing one person and bringing fresh misery for more than 1 million people trapped by earlier storm floods, officials said.
The weather service said Nalgae swept out into the South China Sea after a six-hour daytime rampage on the main island of Luzon, but disaster management chief Benito Ramos said millions of people remained in danger.
“The fight is not over yet,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said up to 8 million people in the central Luzon plains, located between Cordillera and Manila, faced much worse floods than the earlier destruction caused by typhoon Nesat, which had followed the same path.
The weather service’s flood forecasting section said water levels on the tributaries of major central Luzon rivers were rising fast.
These could bring floods to the 150 km long central Luzon floodplain, it added.
Packing gusts of up to 195 kilometres per hour, Nalgae also caused widespread disruption to domestic shipping, aviation, and power supply, the disaster agency said.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Nesat had risen to 52, with 31 fishermen still missing, Ramos said.
Robert Pagdanganan, a former minister in the previous government, said the flooding was the worst he could remember.
“The problem is, there’s really nowhere to go,” he said.
“They (local officials) are trying their best, but the evacuation centres are also flooded.”