A LOW pressure area (LPA) off Palawan exited the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) yesterday after displacing some 2,700 families in the province.
Rains brought by the LPA flooded parts of the province on Wednesday, said Jeremias Alili, chief of the Palawan provincial disaster risk reduction and management office.
He said the towns of Brookes Point and Sofronio Española were the hardest hit.
He said floodwaters have subsided in many areas but residents first have to clean their homes before they can return.
He also said no casualty was reported, noting that affected residents were able to immediately evacuate.
He said the rains and floods damaged a hanging bridge, making it difficult for authorities to reach residents of some barangays.
The LPA entered PAR on Tuesday night and exited at around 3 am yesterday.
Weather specialist Veronica Torres of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said the LPA was some 415 km northeast of Pag-asa Island in Palawan as of yesterday afternoon.
Torres said the LPA is no longer affecting the country. She said the LPA remains unlikely to intensify into a tropical depression.
PAGASA is monitoring another LPA that developed in Palawan yesterday. It was some 305 km northeast of Pag-asa Island as of 3 p.m. yesterday.
“This also has a slim chance of becoming a tropical depression and it’s on the way out of our area of responsibility. It is also not affecting our country,” said Torres.
Meanwhile, the city governments of Pasig, Mandaluyong and Marikina as well as Rizal province suspended classes yesterday afternoon due to continuous rains.
In Marikina, water level at the Marikina river was still at the normal level of 13.5 meters as of 1 p.m. yesterday.
The Department of Education said the estimated cost of repair of schools damaged by flooding over the Christmas weekend in Mindanao climbed to more than P400 million.
DepEd spokesperson Michael Tan Poa said 42 schools sustained damage in the region, of which 30 are in Northern Mindanao, 11 in Caraga, and one in Zamboanga Peninsula. — With Christian Oineza and Ashzel Hachero
