Newlyweds share a kiss knee-deep in floodwater
When it’s your big day, come rain or shine you have to make the best of it. These Filipino newlyweds showed love conquers all when they pushed through with their scheduled wedding despite severe flooding that inundated wide areas of Manila and nine nearby provinces.
Ramoncito Campo and Hernelie Ruazol Campo were pictured sharing this touching kiss after they exchanged vows with water up to their knees in a Catholic church in the Filipino capital.
They were pictured in the flooded church and nearby streets last Wednesday, as the Philippines recovered from a tropical storm which left an estimated 66 people dead and affected a millions more.
To the traditional wedding vow of ‘for better or for worse’, the new Mr and Mrs Campo could have perhaps added their own promise, ‘for wet or for dry’.
And if they had made that pledge the time may already come for it to be tested as officials have warned that a new storm has been spotted off the country’s north-east which is expected to bolster monsoon rains.
Manila’s weather agency says the tropical depression was whirling over the Pacific Ocean today with sustained winds of 55km (34 miles) per hour. It was about 750km (465 miles) from Aurora province.
The expected deluges will hamper efforts to clean up after last weekend’s lethal flooding, which sent 400,000 fleeing their homes with the rains only beginning to ease on Wednesday.
Officials in the Philippines said today they will mobilise thousands
When it’s your big day, come rain or shine you have to make the best of it
to clean up Manila as evacuees return to clear mud and debris that swamped their homes.
Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said that police, soldiers, coast guard personnel and military reservists will be used to help the city recover from its worst flooding since 2009.
Hundreds of volunteers who helped in rescue and relief work in the early days of the floods will also help in the clean-up.
The Office of Civil Defence said today the floods had left at least 66 people dead and affected up to 2.68 million people in Manila and nearby provinces, with more than 440,000 fleeing to evacuation centres. Incessant rains from Sunday to Wednesday swelled rivers and creeks and overwhelmed drainage canals already clogged with rubbish, raising flood waters that at the peak submerged more than half of metropolitan Manila.
Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said authorities have already closed about 100 of 351 government-run shelters in the city as evacuees trickled home.
She said the government planned to relocate about half a million families in the capital, most of them living in ‘danger zones’ such as by river banks and under bridges. ‘It can be done, but that would need a lot of help and a lot of political will from people involved,’ she said.
She did not say how much the relocation would cost, but said funding was not a problem because of prudent spending by the government and anti-corruption measures.