‘Ompong’leaves 54 villages flooded

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The heavy rains brought by Typhoon Ompong (international name Mangkhut) had flooded 54 barangays in Pampanga as of press time and has sent 1, 696 people in evacuation centers.

The Province of Pampanga Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) in its situation report as of noon yesterday reported that Apalit (two barangays), San Simon (four barangays) and Candaba (two barangays) now have flooded villages in at least one to two meter deep floodwater.

Macabebe has nine barangays in flood water with Barangay Castuli registering three to four feet high floodwater. There are also 16 barangays under floodwater in Masantol along with five barangays in the City of San Fernando. Arayat town also repoted ten flooded barangays along with Guagua and Santo Tomas with three flooded barangays each.

PDRRMO officer Angie Blanco said that the preemptive evacuations in the province has placed 506 familes in 26 evacuation centers all over Pampanga. While continuing evacuation efforts in Macabebe has placed 148 persons in evacuation centers.

Strong winds and floodwaters have also damaged six houses, one in Mexico town, another in Santa Rita town and three in the City of San Fer nando.

Blanco said that the PDRRMO Operations Center at Provincial Engineering Office Compound, Sindalan has activated and pre-positioned Disaster Response Equipment and Manpower on stand-by 24/ 7 2.

All city/municipal DRRM officers currently on active standby and closely monitoring their areas of responsibility.

Ompong, which is packing winds of 205 kilometers per hour with gustiness of up to 255 kph and moving at 30 kph, made landfall in Cagayan in the early morning of Saturday and is expected to exit the Philippine Area of Responsibility by Sunday.