Northern Luzon, Philippines - It was an answered prayer for hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Luzon when days of uninterrupted rain eased up, allowing floods to subside in 500 affected barangays by Sunday morning. But what they are really thankful for, said Chief Superintendent Francisco Villaroman, director of the Cagayan Valley regional police, was that the nine towns located beside the Cagayan River were spared from the flash flood, which they expect to happen after a large volume of water gushed out of the Chico River in upland Kalinga province on Saturday.
Based on the report and assessment of the experts, the large volume of water impounded in upland Lubuagan in Kalinga normally and slowly flowed down to the Cagayan River,'' said Villaroman. ''It was a sigh of relief on our part, we are really thankful that these areas were spared because we could not imagine the damage that it would cause,'' he added. It was recalled that as soon as the news broke out of the landslide near the Chico River on Saturday, local authorities immediately launched a forced mass evacuation in the towns of Aparri, Camalaniugan, Lal Lo, Gattaran, Alcala, Sto. Nino, Piat and Rizal which would have been directly swept by flash floods. While the mass evacuation was cancelled, Villaroman said they have already positioned a number of police personnel in the affected areas and warned the residents to be ready for evacuation in case of any eventuality.
