MANILA, 4 May 2009 (IRIN): Tropical storm Dante, which unleashed heavy rains triggering flash floods and landslides, left at least 20 dead and displaced thousands, emergency relief officials said on Monday.
The storm swirled over Mindoro Island south of Luzon before blowing out into the South China Sea on 2 May. But as it was leaving, a low pressure area gained strength and blew in from the Philippine Sea, hitting the eastern-most island of Catanduanes.
The storm, with winds of up to 95km per hour, was last detected some 270 km northeast of Virac in Catanduanes, the state weather bureau said.
The storm dumped rains across large areas in the eastern Bicol region, causing floods and landslides in the provinces of Catanduanes, Sorsogon, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur and Albay, the Office of Civil Defence (OCD) said.
Of the 48.465 people displaced from 17 towns, more than 3.000 are now staying in evacuation centers, mostly schools, while the rest are staying with relatives, the OCD reported.
Several bridges were also washed away or damaged by the floods, cutting off many areas to traffic.
The central government in Manila immediately ordered relief operations for the affected areas, with the health department tasked to “pre-position drugs and medicines” against common colds and flu to prevent an outbreak in packed evacuation centres, Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.
The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its report, The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia, released on 27 April, stated that the region was among the “most vulnerable” to climate change, because of its long coastlines and heavy reliance on agriculture, natural resources and forestry.
– The worst is yet to come. Under a high emissions scenario, the annual mean temperature in the four countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam is projected to rise 4,8 degrees Celsius by 2100 from the 1990 level, the ADB study said, adding that rising global waters could also have “dire consequences for the region”.
It warned that these four Southeast Asian countries could lose about 6,7 percent of their combined gross domestic product each year by 2100 to costs related to climate change if governments continued with their “business as usual” approach.
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