ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 17 December)—While “Sendong” (Severe Tropical Storm Washi) made landfall in Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur in the afternoon of 16 December 2011, it wreaked havoc in my hometown hours later, past midnight.
At that time, I was well asleep in a hotel in Cagayan de Oro City, tired after a long drive from Malaybalay City in Bukidnon, where the diminutive Nissan March I was driving with four other people on board was pummeled by heavy rains.
It was chaos in Cagayan de Oro when I woke up, but I still had to drive a colleague to the airport to catch an early morning flight. And I could not rush home because I heard the Iponan River overflowed, blocking the highway to Iligan
So I stayed a few hours shooting the devastation in Cagayan de Oro, and went home only after lunch when I was sure the highway was clear. Hundreds died in Iligan, but when I arrived around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the dead were already taken out of the streets. But the devastation was evident.
I parked by the highway before reaching the Mandulog Bridge and started shooting right away. And I kept shooting for the weeks that followed.
The areas in Iligan damaged the most were Hinaplanon and Santiago, and thus the barangays I photographed the most.
This morning, 12 years after Iligan’s worst disaster, I decided to do my usual Sunday long run, but with a small camera in my belt bag, and planned a route (21 kms in all) to pass by the places I photographed before. Yesterday, I loaded some of those pictures of long ago in my phone to see how things have changed. (Text and photos by Bobby Timonera, drone pictures by James Umaran)
Following my usual running route, the first to photograph is the Mandulog Bridge I. Photo above shows the old bridge, which collapsed. In the photo below, the old broken bridge can be seen on the right, while a new bridge was built beside it.[]
The story was, there was so much illegal logging in the mountains, in Barangay Rogongon. A lot of large trees were uprooted, too, because there was so much rain. All those trees were carried by the water via the Mandulog River and trapped under the bridge, creating a dam, flooding the neighboring areas in Hinaplanon. As more water and logs came, repeatedly pounding the bridge, it finally broke. The flashflood and the thousands of logs thus devastated the houses in villages downstream, particularly at Orchid Homes on the side of Barangay Santiago and Bayug Island across the river in Hinaplanon.
While I took pictures on the ground, I asked a friend, James Umaran, to shoot from the air with his drone. The upper photo I took weeks after Sendong, aboard an Air Force helicopter. The bridge on the left is Mandulog Bridge II, which fortunately did not break. That is the main bridge along the highway. The broken bridge on the right is Mandulog Bridge I. It used to be the main bridge in the old highway, before the new highway was built in the 1970s. At that time, it was a single-lane wooden bridge.
As I entered Bayug Island—officially not an island, a delta maybe, if I remember my Social Studies lesson on bodies of water under Mrs. Abragan—I passed by these bamboo trees. Upper photo was taken during Sendong time. Since then, the area has become a cemetery of sort for vehicles that were submerged by Sendong’s floodwaters.
I was surprised why there were so many people going to Bayug Island. I learned the city government held a commemoration on the 12th anniversary of Sendong, in the area where the Sendong memorial statue is located. It was made by Iliganon sculptor Julie Lluch.
This is the house of the Calica family in Bayug, hit by a giant log. I was told several members of the family perished. Many people died in Bayug when the flashflood came after midnight during a blackout, bringing with it giant logs that wiped out houses, and lives, in a matter of minutes. There was just no time for people to look for safe places; and if there’s one, you can’t see it in the dark. Others were carried into the sea. A few were rescued, but many were not found.
A still unfinished house hit by Sendong that didn’t get to see completion until now, abandoned by the owner.
I remember this man circling the debris several times under the blazing sun, looking for a younger brother that disappeared during Sendong. A flood control structure has been built in this area to protect Bayug.[]
