Philippines: How social media help in typhoon rescue

Manila: "Use #RescuePH #LandoPh for rescue."

Those are the hashtags people who needed immediate help in typhoon-battered areas were told to use so rescuers could get to them as quickly as possible. Lando is the the local name of typhoon "Koppu".

The slow-moving but deadly storm continued to unleash its wrath in nothern Philippines for the fourth day in a row Tuesday, bringing with in torrential rains following strong gusts that left at least 23 people dead.

Social media did prove to be a big help facilitating the swift flow of information, leading to countless rescue operations and probably lives saved.

People have also used map-tags to pinpoint the location of those needing urgent help.

But it doesn't always work: trying to mitigate the damage of a slow-moving typhoon that have felled power lines in at least nine provinces proved to be a challenge as communication networks were degraded and phone batteries ran out.

As rivers overflowed and families need to be evacuated, frantic messages have made a buzz on social media.

A Tweep had sent out a call for rescuers to get to her grandmother real quick, sending out images of what she claimed was the old woman's partially-submerged house.

Sifting through such emergency, many of which come from non-serious situations, was also a challenge for disaster-relief workers.

National Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRCC) Monitoring Centre said they had been inundated by non-emergency calls for help, prompting them to post this tweet:

The slow-motion Typhoon Koppu continued to wreak havoc in the northern Philippines, where thousands of residents still have days of life-threatening rainfall ahead.

At least 23 people have died and six more are missing since the landfall of Typhoon Koppu (Lando) in the Philippines, while flooding rains continue to lash parts of the country with torrential downpours.

Koppu was downgraded to a tropical storm late Monday, but remains a deadly threat to the archipelago.

"As expected, Koppu has stalled near Luzon in the northern Philippines," said weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce.

"Although its winds will continue to weaken, heavy rain will drench the region into at least Tuesday, leading to more dangerous flooding and possible mudslides."

In Cabanatuan City, heavy rain deepened flood misery in farming and mountainous regions of the northern Philippines on Tuesday, after the latest typhoon to hit the storm-ravaged nation killed at least 23 people.

Koppu had weakened into a tropical storm and moved into the South China Sea by Tuesday morning, but its huge rain band ensured downpours across swathes of the sodden north where tens of thousands of people were displaced.

"The waters rose really fast, luckily we were rescued," Lourdes Gatmaitan, 64, told AFP after sleeping at a basketball court being used as an evacuation centre in Cabanatuan, a town about three hours' drive north of Manila, the capital.

Koppu, the second-strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year, had impacted nearly 300,000 people across the main island of Luzon, the government's disaster management agency said.

Twenty-two people were killed in floods, landslides and boat accidents, as well as by flying debris, according to an AFP tally based on confirmed figures from national and local authorities.

While the water had subsided on Tuesday in areas closer to the ranges, such as in Cabanatuan, the flooding had moved downstream to other farming towns.

More than 200 villages in the farming regions were flooded on Tuesday, with some areas more than one metre (three feet) under water, according to a report from the local civil defence office.

And heavy rain continued over the Cordillera mountain range, meaning more water was expected to flow down.

Weather forecasters also warned that Koppu would cut back onto the far northern edge of Luzon on Wednesday morning after picking up more water in the South China Sea.

The Philippines endures about 20 major storms a year, many of them deadly.
The islands of the Southeast Asian archipelago are often the first major landmass that the storms hit after emerging over the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have warned climate change will mean more frequent and intense storms.
The most powerful storm ever recorded on land, Super Typhoon Haiyan, hit the Philippines in 2013, leaving at least 7,350 people dead or missing.

While the latest storm has not been one of the deadliest, it will condemn many thousands of already financially struggling farmers to deeper poverty.

On the outskirts of Cabanatuan City, a regional trading centre, the receded floodwaters revealed vast swathes of rice crops destroyed, their green blades turned brown, flattened and withered.

Farmers and other residents, their legs and arms caked in mud, wrung mattresses and blankets by the roadside to squeeze out brown water.

"If we don't clean this up fast, we'll get sick," tricycle driver Dennis Punzalan told AFP, his feet buried in thick, slimy mud, as he threw his five-year-old daughter's teddy bears on to a pile of rubbish.

A 6-year-old girl died after falling into a creek in Bambang municipality Sunday, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Additional fatalities included two deaths due to cardiac arrest after landslides in Tinoc municipality, two young men swept away by swift waters in Buguias and Tineg municipalities and a woman who died from electrocution in Moncada municipality.

One individual was killed when a boat capsized near Surigao City, the NDRRMC reported. A teenager was killed Sunday in suburban Quezon city after being pinned by a fallen tree. Four others were injured in the incident and three houses were damaged.

A concrete wall collapsed in Subic town, killing a 62-year-old woman and injuring her husband, according to Nigel Lontoc of the Office of Civil Defense. In Casiguran, Aurora province, where the storm made landfall, virtually all of the buildings and infrastructure sustained damage, according to the website Rappler.

Officials said two other nearby towns, Dinalungan and Dilasag, have been cut off from the outside world, and little is known about their condition.

Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali reported two people drowned in the city of Palayan and were found floating in floodwaters.

Another man was killed by a landslide Sunday when he went to check on his farm in the mountain town of Bakud in Benguet province, according to the Associated Press.

Two other men drowned in Nueva Ecija, the report added. Seven others were lost at sea, NBC News reported via Reuters. Those deaths occurred in the central Philippines, which were not directly affected by the storm, the AP said.

Lontoc also stated that three fishermen who were missing at sea were rescued off northern Bataan province, and three other missing people were found in an evacuation camp in Aurora's Baler town.

The AP reported that 65,000 villagers have been displaced in the typhoon's path, including in towns prone to flash floods and landslides. According to a tweet from the Philippines Red Cross, a child was swept away and reported missing in Nueva Vizcaya.

(With reports from news agencies)