I can only watch the news from afar and it saddens me to see that most parts of Manila and other nearby provinces were under water for days due to typhoon Ondoy (International name: Ketsana). Six hours of deluge that resulted to 15 feet of water: extremely unbelievable. I cannot imagine Manila to be under water since it’s one of the higher areas in the Philippines.

I lived in Manila for 10 years since college — around 5 years in Makati central business district — and I’ve never seen anything like this before. In fact, the worst that I’ve seen was the Payatas Tragedy but that only affect a certain area. The recent typhoon in Manila proved to be one of the worst typhoons that hit the Philippines in the last decade and, yes, worse than typhoon Frank that hit my hometown, Iloilo, June of 2007.

The world is indeed changing.

My friends had blow-by-blow Twitter updates about the crisis, some rescue initiatives flooded Facebook, relief goods started pouring in, and thousands of dollars were donated by Filipinos in the US via Paypal. It was amazing to see social media in action and how we can leverage it in times of crises. The Internet played a huge part in the rescue of some stranded individuals amidst the absence of mobile signal.

I am thankful that my family in Iloilo were not affected. In fact, they were hardly hit by the storm, although my mom said it was depressing to watch the news.

I really have no word to describe the extent of the calamity so I will let these photos speak for themselves.

A scene in Laguna province, 60km south of Manila. Photo credit IRRI

Photo credit: Times News Network

Photo credit: Rembcc. Read full story about this photo here.

Photo credit: Greenpeace Southeast Asia

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