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| Filipinos use a makeshift raft to ferry residents in a flooded community in Quezon City, east of Manila yesterday. Thousands fled their homes and seven fishermen went missing as rains brought by tropical storm Meari triggered flooding in the eastern Philippines provinces |
Thousands of people fled their homes and seven fishermen went missing as rains triggered flooding in the eastern Philippines, officials said yesterday.
Seven fishermen aboard three motorboats went missing at sea in the eastern province of Catanduanes, 360km south-east of Manila, Police Inspector Ayn Nutuel said.
More than 36,000 people were evacuated from their houses in nearby Albay province because of flooding brought by rains from Tropical Storm Meari, provincial Governor Joey Salceda said.
At least 26 domestic flights in Manila have been cancelled because of the bad weather, which began affecting the country on Tuesday and was expected to generate more rains in large parts of the country until the weekend.
The weather bureau said Meari, with maximum sustained winds of 65km per hour and gusts of up to 80kph, was located yesterday morning 270km north-east of Catanduanes province.
The bureau urged residents in low-lying areas to be on alert for flashfloods and landslides.
Meanwhile, tropical storm Haima hit land in southern China’s Guangdong province yesterday, bringing heavy rain that was expected to move over flooded inland areas.
The China Meteorological Administration said Haima, the fourth tropical storm to hit China this year, would move in a west-to-north-west direction packing winds of 72kph at its centre.
It said heavy rain had already affected Guangdong, nearby Hainan island and the neighbouring Guangxi region.
State media said passenger ferry services between Hainan and Guangdong were suspended from Wednesday afternoon and some flights were cancelled at the Meilan International Airport in Haikou, Hainan’s capital.
Weather forecasters warned that rainstorms were also expected to hit the south-western provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, and other areas of central and eastern China.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said the central government allocated another 175mn yuan ($27mn) on Wednesday to help flood victims in four provinces, adding to the 340mn yuan already budgeted for flood relief this year.
