Philippine authorities moved thousands of residents of the capital, Manila, out of their low-lying communities on Saturday as heavy monsoon rain, compounded by a tropical storm, flooded the city and nearby provinces. The national disaster agency said 14,023 people, most of them from a flood-prone Manila suburb, had moved into evacuation centres. The Philippines, a Southeast Asian archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, sees about 20 tropical storms a year but a warmer Pacific Ocean will make storms more powerful and bring heavier rain, meteorologists have said. Earlier on Saturday, residents of Metro Manila and nearby provinces were awoken following a 6.6-magnitude earthquake that struck the neighbouring province of Batangas. The earthquake, which struck at dawn on Saturday, was of tectonic, not volcanic, origin.

Source: The Nation July 24, 2021 06:45 UTC