As rains from the latest typhoon “Gener” (international name: Saola) hit Manila, waves rising out of Manila Bay left much of iconic Roxas Boulevard flooded, including the United States Embassy which was forced to close Wednesday, the 1st of August 2012. By then the death toll had already reportedly risen to 14 and more than 150,000 forced from their homes as vast shantytowns across the city were inundated.
Just less than two weeks ago, the 21st July, Manila had already been “turned into a water-world” after heavy rains pounded the metropolis for hours.
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Flooding in Manila seems to be occurring more frequently nowadays — and becoming more consistently severe. The degree to which the last couple of days’ rains which led to school interruptions and impacted workers’ productivity will damage the already fragile social and economic fabric of the Philippines will be the subject of much conjecture. But the real question is, will this sort of thing be increasingly the norm?
Manila was, in fact, cited in a 2009 report featured in TreeHugger.com as being one of the big Asian “mega-cities” that will likely be the worst-affected by climate change.
Manila is the third-worst Asian mega-city in terms of climate change, scoring similarly to Jakarta overall. But in terms of exposure to sea level rise, flooding, storms, Manila is the worst in the lot. Socio-economic sensitivity is moderate for the cities surveyed, but threats are still high — the same can be said of adaptive capacity, which is similar to Jakarta.
The report notably compares Manila to Jakarta which was cited as “slightly better than Dhaka” whose adaptive capacity to stress related to floods brought about by rising sea levels was described in the report as “very little” owing to “very low incomes and development levels”.
Sea level rise may, indeed, be already happening and, according to “new research” may be “unstoppable”. Manila’s coastline will, to put it mildly, look a lot different if current trends hold…
If you own property in Quezon City, hang on to it! If you are squatting there, start arming yourselves!
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
I’m quite torn. According to that map, our house in QC will gain a view of a lake or inland sea if sea level rises.
Seriously though, this is bad.
Actually, flooding isn’t the problem in Manila–it’s human settlement.
Vast portions of Manila (particularly the Marikina basin and its surrounding environs) are actually part of a large flood plain; it’s therefore natural that flooding would occur. Most people would think that the perennial “problem” of flooding is purely man-made; they got it half-right. In actuality, human migration into Manila has gone so haywire in the past hundred years or so that no one really knows how to solve it anymore.
Nature is reclaiming Manila back for itself. It seems to me that the only solution is to depopulate the City by half.
Same thing as the communities hit by the flooding brought about by Typhoon Sendong in Cagayan de Oro. These were communities that also settled floodplains.
My thoughts exactly. As cruel as it may be, the country is in dire need of a population reduction. If contraceptives and safe sex can’t, nature most likelu will.
Anybody wants to start a Gondola business. We are now Venice of the Far East…
Then it’s another p!n0Y_p|2iD3 time again! Woohoo! More reasons to be proud of our “race”, “blood” and “people”–whatever that is.
Can’t wait for fishball to blame GMA for these floodings here again 🙂
Fishball will blame GMA on the the Pinoy Olympic Medal count.
I thought it was common knowledge that when the ice melts in the poles, the water levels will rise. Since land does not rise with it, the “sea level” of 0.00m would be significantly different compared to what it was 10 years ago.
I agree improper garbage disposal has brought about flood conditions where there normally wouldn’t have been floods regardless of the rising sea level as it was only “normal” rain volume.
Anyway, I think the sea wall for Roxas Boulevard is in dire need of being raised, if not, an approach similar to what is being done for Venice. If I am not mistaken, it is also under risk of being “eaten” by the sea given its environment/surrounding. As such they installed multiple gates that control sea levels of venice. This was featured in megastructures in Nat Geo if I am not mistaken.
Cheers!
Please advise where you got the map showing global warming’s impact on the coastline. Thanks!
best solution for manila is to dig ‘pacific ocean – laguna – manila bay’ big canal with and canals that connecting rivers.
Russia has already made its warning to their people about the coming of the planet Nibiru in our solar system. I believe all government leaders around the world have been informed by the scientific and military communities about the coming event. As Nibiru approaches our solar system, water levels will continue to rise and when Nibiru comes, continents and countries will disappear from the face of the earth.
The Philippines will disappear just as it rose from the Pacific some 3600 years ago when the last cyclic earth change took place. I have seen a new earth map on the internet and it is scary. They estimate 5 billion people will die and sever cold weather to follow.
Umm… specify please. Maybe that was based on superstition rather than scientific fact.
I hope your sarcastic.
Reminds me of the great “lizard people” conspiracy theory.
I don’t believe in it, but it really entertains me, only because I was that kid that adored reptiles and dinosaurs instead of fluffy kittens etc.
Anthropomorphic reptiles are my favorite things to draw now, and imagining some kind of Game of Thrones-esque sci-fi plot involving great reptile families is captivating.