TROPICAL depression “Lannie” left a 34-year-old motorcycle driver and a 13-year-old girl dead in Cebu.
In Consolacion, a man and a woman who were driving their motorcyle on a narrow path fell to the swelling river in Purok 3, Barangay Nangka, Consolacion, Cebu at about 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, 2021.
Both the Honda XRM driver, Baljinder Singh, and his companion, Jezil Natingga, 24, struggled with the current.
Natingga got rescued but Singh couldn’t be found until 1:50 a.m. of Tuesday, Oct. 5, about 250 meters from where they fell. He was dead.
Down south in Carcar City, 13-year-old Jan Kristel Encabo drowned as a gush of seawater caught her.
She had been walking by the shore with her friend Rose Anne Caballero to reach the mangrove area in Barangay Can-asujan where young people hang around.
Caballero cried for help but rescuers had a hard time reaching for Encabo because the seawater had risen to a high level, a report from Neil Sanchez, head of the Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO), said.
A lifeless Encabo was found at 11 a.m. of Oct. 5 in Barangay Perrelos.
Consolacion
In the Consolacion case, PLt. Tim Soreño, deputy chief for administration of the Consolacion Police Office, told Superbalita Cebu that Singh and Natingga, wanting to go home, had forced themselves to travel even with zero visibility in the area caused by the downpour brought by Tropical Depression “Lannie.” They couldn’t see that the river where they were passing by had swollen and had started to overflow to the pathway, Soreño said.
There was no other path or route to where they were going, the policeman said.
Soreño said town policemen had been deployed to the area because of the road condition, but they did not notice any untoward incident because they were having their supper.
He said it was the first time the river in Nangka overflowed.
To avoid another incident from happening, he advised those who use the route to wait for the weather to clear, Soreño advised.
Tropical Depression Lannie, which brought prolonged rains since Oct. 3, had left the Philippines on Tuesday, Oct. 5.
It had made 10 landfalls in the country, including one in the southern town of San Fernando, Cebu at 1:45 p.m. of Oct. 4. (KFD, ANV)