List of worst calamities and Memory of Ondoy

Exactly two years ago typhoon Ondoy poured in as they said water equal to a month supply of rainfall. Metro Manila experience flooding like never before, at least during modern times when we least expect something this huge could happened. No one was spared, even celebrities and as a matter of fact, Malacañang Palace was caught too. I have no record how many have lost their houses or have died but this was one of the worst natural calamity our archipelago experienced, saved that July 16, 1990 Earthquake where Millions upon Millions of infrastructure lost and casualties rose by the hundreds.   

   Too many tragic stories rose from the aftermath of Ondoy…and the images simply broke my heart. I could not imagine how a person could bare the lost of his entire belongings and dead love ones. How he or she could carry the pain of surviving the catastrophe only to be reminded with images of drowning child or parents.

   We know there were some lapses from the former and current leaders of our land due to irresponsibility but we also have to remember our part in the fulfillment of these tragedies. We had not been good steward of mother earth. The rivers are now reclaiming its domain; the mountains are taking its over due revenge; and skies are in raged from the toxic we emitted.

   Now, once again, we have to admit our fate was our own creation. Let this day September 25…be a reminder of how nature pay back the disrespect we bestow on her.     

   Sadly our country is prone to disaster especially super-typhoon since we are lying directly to tropical storm path forming from the Pacific Ocean. They said, we have to face more or less 30 storms a year.  Now if we have not learned yet the lesson of Ondoy and other Natural sisaster, then think again, after reading some of this data...

List of Worst Calamity

(from http://www.txtmania.com/trivia/disasters.php)

Worst EarthquakesOn July 16, 1990, an earthquake that registered 7.7 on the Richter scale killed 1,700 people, injured 3,000 individuals and displaced 148,000 more in Luzon. Among the cities that sustained the worst damages were Baguio, Dagupan and Cabanatuan.  On August 17, 1976, an earthquake caused a tidal wave or tsunami that killed about 8,000 people in Mindanao, according to the Information Please Almanac. On August 2, 1968, an earthquake caused the collapse of Ruby Tower buildings, leaving hundreds of people trapped underneath the rubble.

Worst Typhoons and FlashfloodsAs a typhoon codenamed Thelma was passing the Philippines on November 5, 1991, a flashflood hit Ormoc City in Leyte province, killing at least 3,000 people and destroying the homes of 50,000 others.  In September 1984, a typhoon codenamed Ike killed 1,300 persons while in 1995 typhoon Angela killed 700 people. On August 3, 1999, heavy torrential rains caused a landslide that killed 58 people and buried over 100 houses at Cherry Hills Subsivision in Antipolo City. On November 9, 2001, a typhoon locally named "Nanang" caused a flashflood that buried 350 residents of Mahinog in the island-province of Camiguin.

Coastal Areas Sinking
According to the University of the Philippines' National Institute of Geological Sciences, low coastal areas at the Manila Bay, such as Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela and several towns in Bulacan, Pampanga and Bataan have sunk one meter in the past 30 years or ten times than the rate of the global sea level rise in the last century.

Worst Volcanic EruptionsIn June, 1991, Mount Pinatubo in Zambales province had the century's second largest volcanic eruption, as it unleashed some 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the earth's atmosphere that resulted in slight cooling of the earth's temperature. Thousands of people were believed killed as a result of the eruption and the subsequent lahar flow, which buried several villages in the provinces of Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales. The eruption also forced American troops out of their bases in Clark, Pampanga and Subic, Zambales.

Worst Disaster in HistoryOn July 12, 2000, the Philippines witnessed one of the world's most horrifying images of social tragedy in history. Nearly 500 garbage scavengers who were living literally at the Payatas dumpsite in Quezon City were buried alive under tons of garbage when a 50-foot garbage mountain collapsed on their makeshift houses at the height of torrential rains.  It was a tragic commentary on poverty in the Philippines, yet the lesson remains to be learned to this day. 

Genesis 7:1-24 

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. ...