Before and after a river ran wild

Since time immemorial, rivers have been the founts of civilizations, and so they have been in the Philippines, from the Pasig in the north, which gave birth to Maynila, to the Cagayan in the south.  The catastrophic storm Sendong of December 2011 has reminded the complacent that rivers can rise up and destroy whatever is in their path.  Geohazard maps clearly showed that downstream settlements along the Mandulog River in Iligan City in northern Mindanao were highly vulnerable to flooding, a risk heightenedd by logging and siltation. But it was never easy to move away from riverside locations; after all that was also where commerce and jobs were concentrated. These images of the Mandulog River before and after the great Sendong flood show the nightmare envisioned by the geohazard maps. —  HS/VS, GMA News

The Mandulog River nourished communities for centuries, before destroying them. Source: UP National Institute of Geological Sciences