Floods in the Philip­pines hit Manilla
The Philip­pine Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion acti­vat­ed the Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tions (HERO) on two metre and 40 metres pass­ing essen­tial traf­fic dur­ing the recent wide­spread flood­ing in Manila.
The news media reports that 66 died in the tor­ren­tial rain and offi­cials esti­mat­ed 300,000 fled their homes in the cap­i­tal city of Mani­la sub­merg­ing 80 per cent of it.
Eddie Valdez DU1EV, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of PARA said that HERO was on air from Mon­day night the 6th through to Thurs­day the 9th of August, includ­ing one of the ham emer­gency radio oper­a­tors who found him­self affect­ed by the flood waters and flee­ing his home after two days of operations.
Eddie DU1EV said the sun final­ly, but only par­tial­ly, showed up on the Thurs­day, with the floods reced­ing in most parts.
He said tonnes of garbage lit­ters the roads, parks and drains in Mani­la and sur­round­ing provinces. A big clean-up is under way. In the worst affect­ed areas like Marik­i­na City, the Metro Mani­la Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty said it would take about a month to clean and clear the drainage canals.
Near­ly two weeks of mon­soon rains across the Philip­pines main island of Luzon peaked with a 48-hour del­uge that bat­tered Mani­la and sur­round­ing regions.
This was the worst rains to hit Mani­la since Trop­i­cal Storm Ket­sana killed 464 peo­ple in 2009.
Eddie DU1EV had, through the PARA web­site, warned of the pend­ing rains ask­ing every­one to be pre­pared by mon­i­tor­ing the emer­gency fre­quen­cies of 7.095 MHz and 144.740 MHz.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee and Eddie Valdez DU1EV, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of PARA.