In the days following Typhoon Ulysses, the province of Cagayan in the northern Philippines found itself submerged not by the storm itself, but by the accumulated rainfall of five surrounding provinces draining into a river no longer capable of carrying the burden. Nine lives were lost — to landslides, drowning, and electrocution — and nearly fifty thousand people were displaced, many still waiting on rooftops for rescue that darkness had delayed. Governor Manuel Mamba named what lay beneath the disaster: years of environmental neglect had silted the Cagayan River into a shadow of itself, turni
Cagayan faces unprecedented flooding from upstream rainfall as death toll reaches 9
Nine people killed including one rescue worker; 4 died in landslides, 2 drowned, 3 electrocuted; 47,000 evacuated with many still awaiting rescue.
The river had nowhere to go but sideways, into homes
Mark
Why did the flooding happen after the typhoon left?
Mimi
The rain didn't come from Ulysses directly. It came from five provinces upstream—Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao, Kalinga, Isabela. All that water ran downhill into Cagayan at the same time. The governor had no typhoon signal, but the water kept coming anyway.
Mark
So the river should have handled it?
Mimi
It should have, but the Cagayan River is silted now. The riverbed is shallower than it was. Instead of flowing through a channel two or three hundred meters wide, the water spread across two or three kilometers. It had nowhere to go but into the towns.
Mark
Is that a recent problem?
Mimi
It's been building for years. Environmental degradation—erosion, siltation. The governor said this is the first time they've experienced flooding like this. They've had floods before, but not like this. Not when five provinces worth of rain arrives at once and the river can't carry it.
Mark
Were people prepared?
Mimi
They did preemptive evacuations. They thought it would be the usual kind of flooding. But some people didn't want to leave their homes. They thought the water would recede like it always did. Forty-seven thousand people were evacuated Friday night alone, and there were still countless others waiting for rescue Saturday morning.
Mark
What does the governor think needs to happen?
Mimi
He's calling it a lesson. He said the suffering should teach the region to stop exploiting the environment. But that's a longer conversation. Right now, people are still on rooftops waiting for boats that can't come because it's dark and the current is too dangerous.
Le Pouls
- Typhoon Ulysses had already departed when Cagayan began to drown — the real threat arrived silently, as runoff from five neighboring provinces overwhelmed a weakened river with no typhoon warning issued.
- Twenty-four of twenty-eight towns submerged, nine dead, and rescue teams stretched to exhaustion after days of continuous operations — yet thousands remained stranded on rooftops as nightfall halted operations.
- Evacuation centers were already full before the worst arrived, and many residents, expecting the usual manageable flooding, chose to wait it out — a gamble the rising water did not forgive.
- Governor Mamba points to a decades-long environmental wound: siltation has reduced the Cagayan River from a deep, contained channel to a shallow, sprawling flood plain two to three kilometers wide, with no capacity to absorb regional rainfall.
- The governor's warning lands as both grief and indictment — the province suffered not from an unforeseeable act of nature, but from the slow, preventable degradation of the very river meant to protect it.
In the days following Typhoon Ulysses, the province of Cagayan in the northern Philippines found itself submerged not by the storm itself, but by the accumulated rainfall of five surrounding provinces draining into a river no longer capable of carrying the burden. Nine lives were lost — to landslides, drowning, and electrocution — and nearly fifty thousand people were displaced, many still waiting on rooftops for rescue that darkness had delayed. Governor Manuel Mamba named what lay beneath the disaster: years of environmental neglect had silted the Cagayan River into a shadow of itself, turning what was once a corridor of passage into a source of catastrophe. The flood, he suggested, was not only a weather event — it was a reckoning.
By Saturday morning, Cagayan's death toll had reached nine — one rescue worker among them. Four had died in landslides, two had drowned, three had been electrocuted. Rescue teams were still pulling survivors from rooftops as streets ran like rivers and the water continued to rise.
What set this disaster apart was its origin. Typhoon Ulysses had already left Philippine territory by Friday morning. It was not the storm that flooded Cagayan — it was the rain the storm left behind in the mountains. Runoff from Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Isabela all converged into the province at once. The Cagayan River, which should have carried it away, could not. Twenty-four of the province's twenty-eight towns were submerged. No typhoon signal had been raised. The water came anyway.
Evacuation centers were already overwhelmed. Rescue teams, worn down from responding to earlier localized floods the week before, were now tasked with reaching forty-seven thousand people evacuated in a single night — plus countless others still waiting in the dark, on rooftops, for help that could not safely come until morning.
Governor Manuel Mamba traced the disaster to the river itself. Siltation — sediment built up over years of erosion and environmental misuse — had made the Cagayan River shallower and wider, spreading floodwaters two to three kilometers across instead of channeling them through a contained bed. The river had lost its capacity to protect the people who depended on it. Mamba spoke of it as a warning long overdue: 'I hope the suffering we are going through now will be lessons already,' he said, 'to stop exploiting the environment in our region.'
Some residents had waited, believing the flood would behave as floods usually did — temporary, retreating. It did not retreat. The province had prepared, had moved people preemptively. But nothing had prepared them for five provinces worth of rainfall arriving at once, funneled into a river too wounded to hold it.
By Saturday morning, the death toll in Cagayan had climbed to nine. One was a rescue worker. Four had been killed by landslides, two had drowned, and three had been electrocuted. The province was still pulling people from rooftops. Streets had become rivers. The water kept rising.
What made this flooding different—what made it, in the governor's word, unprecedented—was that Typhoon Ulysses had already left. The storm had moved out of the Philippine area of responsibility Friday morning. It was not Ulysses that drowned Cagayan. It was rain that fell somewhere else.
Governor Manuel Mamba explained it on Saturday: water from Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Isabela had all run downhill into his province. The Cagayan River, which should have carried it away, could not. Twenty-four of the province's twenty-eight towns and one city were submerged. A local disaster official had called it the "Pacific Ocean." Mamba said they had no typhoon signal. The rain came anyway, from upstream, and it stayed.
The evacuation centers were already full. Rescuers had been working since the previous week, pulling people from localized floods that had come before this. Now those same exhausted teams were being asked to save forty-seven thousand people who had been brought to higher ground Friday night alone, plus countless others still waiting on rooftops, still screaming into the dark for help that could not come because rescue operations had to stop when evening fell—the water was too high, the current too dangerous.
Mamba blamed the river itself. The Cagayan River, he said, was not what it used to be. Siltation—the buildup of sediment over years of erosion and environmental degradation—had made the riverbed shallower. Where the river had once been two hundred to three hundred meters wide, it now spread across two to three kilometers. The water had nowhere to go but sideways, into homes, into streets, into the spaces where people lived. He spoke of it as a lesson, a warning about what happens when a region stops protecting its environment. "I hope the suffering we are going through now will be lessons already," he said, "to stop exploiting the environment in our region."
Some people trapped in their homes did not want to leave. They thought it would be like the usual floods—manageable, temporary. They waited for the water to recede. It did not recede quickly. The province had prepared. They had done preemptive evacuations. But nothing had prepared them for this: rain from five provinces converging at once, a river too shallow to handle it, a disaster that arrived not from the sky above but from the mountains around them.
Citations marquantes
We don't have a typhoon signal but rainfall from Quirino, Vizcaya, Ifugao, Kalinga, Isabela all came here. This is unprecedented—the first time we've experienced this kind of flooding.— Governor Manuel Mamba
I hope the suffering we are going through now will be lessons to stop exploiting the environment in our region.— Governor Manuel Mamba
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