How Agaton brought forth destruction in the Visayan Region

Hey guys, this is Thain and I just want to say something today. 

Please pray for the safety of the people in the Visayan Region! 

It actually took a while for me to upload this because it's really raining hard here. Basyang, better known by its international name, Malakas, has already entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR). 

Agaton has been attacking most of the Visayan Region over the last few days.Some portions of Leyte now, especially Baybay, are being flooded. Portions of Northern Ioilo, Cebu, Northern Negros Occidental, Aklan and Capiz are also covered by water. Some even experienced landslides. 

I haven't gotten an update from my friend yet. Power supply has not been available in their city since yesterday, and I've read updates stating that some portions of their municipality are already flooded as 136 barangays in Capiz alone are drowning in water. 

And you guys might wonder that since everything is already a mess here, why am I still writing? 

Well, basically, I can't stop this heavy rain from pouring, so what I ought to do should be staying with my family and prepare emergency kits, which we have already done. As a result, we have no choice but to stay safe inside our homes.

In addition to that, this condition has urged us to stay awake, even if the coldness is a great encourager of sleep. Meters away from us, there's a bridge constructed over a river. From time to time, officials are monitoring the water level and we need to keep updated regarding it so we can evacuate immediately in case a flood warning is raised. 

Tides are another feature of water forms. During the course of a day, there's a 12 hour high tide and a 12 hour low tide. A tide has the characteristic of lasting for 6 hours a day, so basically there are 2 high tides and 2 low tides every day in alteration.

Agaton and Basyang are also not supertyphoons, but rather they interchange from being tropical cyclones to tropical storms to tropical depressions. This means that it stays longer than a supertyphoon. Staying longer would mean a longer time of heavy rain and a greater possibility of flooding. 

This is a province where we might not be surrounded by a lot of buildings, but we're wrapped in water forms. Aside from seas, lakes, and rivers, we have springs and falls from the mountains. That's why in times like this, it is important to stay awake and alert.

As we are all not meteorologists, we cannot just draw conclusions from what we've seen. What we can do is just trust those who know what's happening on a larger scale and listen to them for proper response and operation.

As I type this now, I know there are a lot of rescue operations happening in some areas, with people using social media to leverage help and make the situation bearable for everybody.

This is the very first typhoon of the year 2022, Agaton, which was immediately followed by the second one, Basyang. Sure, it just arrived in April, but it is also very destructive. The last time I heard of Agaton being a typhoon was in 2014.

I was in Panay, in Pilar Capiz. I stayed there after attending a regional school's press conference. A media and journalism-related activity. We've also been stranded there for a few days, unable to go back home because there's no service for water vessels (ferries).

The positive part there was that I was able to meet some people during my stay and during the travel itself, I got to see a lot of places. But now what I can only see is trees and plants laying on the ground. Crops engulfed in mud, herds drowned in water.

I suddenly felt sorry for the farmers and their supposed harvest. The Negros and Panay Regions are primarily agricultural.The places boast numerous grains and sugarcane fields. Some provinces also venture into the aquaculture and fishing industries, which after typhoons, per record, are always left devastated with their boats and fishing tools broken. 

I pray the typhoon will leave the Philippine Area of Responsibility sooner. The Visayas have not yet recovered from Odette's destruction last December, 2021, and they're being battered again.

Although resilient, this doesn't mean that people living in the aforementioned regions should face typhoons like this. 

Thank you for reading. God bless you all!