As far as I can remember heavy rains started around 2am, with matching lightning and thunder. By 3am it is still raging. By 4am, we noticed that the water level at the walkway/garage is rising fast. I helped my nephew and niece (who are staying on the apartment on the first floor) move some of their stuffs to a higher ground (but still inside their sala). Floodwater started to invade the the house, so we decided to act fast: put all important stuffs to a safer ground and turn off main electrical switch in their circuit breaker. By 5am water is still rising. This is really unexpected because we know that our area in Manila is not prone to floods, our street/area stands on some sort of a higher ground when compared the nearby streets (see pictures below).
Water level stopped rising at around 6am. I tried to search for news about this flash flood in the major news sites but no success 🙁 . I tried to search via twitter and have few success with pinoy related terms (baha and ulan) and it seems Sampaloc area, Sta. Mesa (Altura and Pureza areas), Espana, and some parts of San Juan and Q.C. (Greenhills going to Gilmore) are already flooded.
Fast-forward. 9am, Spiderham was in LRT2 Pureza station taking some pics. After 3~4 hours since it stopped raining the flood water in the area have not subsided fully 🙁
This is Ramon Magsaysay Blvd. cor Pureza St. (Going to Nagtahan/Quiapo area). You can see in the middle that kids are playing and swimming in the flood. You can see here part of the CitiMed Pharmacy and the De Ocampo School in the left part of the pic.
You can see here that only the truck braved the deep flood waters.
Still in Pureza Street. This one showing part of Citimed pharmacy and 7-11 convenience store (near waiting area for Pedicabs going to Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP)). I heard that flood water inched their way to the 7-11 store too.
This is in front of AMA-Pureza. Flood water at the stretch of Maganda St.
August 22, 2009. A busy busy day indeed.
Photos courtesy of SpiderHam.
Update 09.27.2009
Another typhoon (Ondoy, International name Ketsana) hit Manila yesterday and caused massive flooding in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. As per last update, some 80+ people perished because of the rains/ flooding.
If you want to help the flood victims, kindly visit my Blog Action Day for Typhoon Ondoy