1,500 families still in Pasig evac centers

Some 1,500 families in Pasig City are still housed in various evacuations centers as 14 of the city’s 35 barangays remain submerged under floodwaters.

As of last Monday, the evacuees were sheltered in Rizal High School and the public elementary schools in barangays Maybunga, Ilugin, Nagpayong, Bambang, Kalawaan and Santolan. The city government has suspended classes in some of these schools to give way to the evacuees.

According to Jing Miranda, of the Pasig City Disaster Center, the evacuees lived along the banks of the Pasig River and the Napindan Channel which overflowed when typhoon "Seniang" unleashed her fury.

Miranda said the houses of the evacuees are flooded either knee-deep or waist-high at present. Mostly affected, however, was Napayong where floodwaters almost reached the roofs. A part of the Pinagbuhatan public market is also still under water forcing affected vendors to transfer in front of the Immaculate Concepcion Church on Caruncho Avenue.

Displaced residents feared that the flooding will not immediately subside, based on the city’s history. During a flooding in some parts of the city in 1972, five months passed before the waters went down; three months in 1976; four months in 1986 and three months in 1988.

Miranda said the city might remain flooded if the water level in nearby Laguna de Bay would not recede. – Shiela Crisostomo