A Geological Perspective to the June 2008 Iloilo Disaster

A.M.F.A Lagmay and E.M.R. Paguican

National Institute of Geological Sciences, University of the Philippines
INTRODUCTION
On 21 June 2008, Typhoon Fengshen (Philippine codename Frank), made its landfall in eastern Samar traveling northwest over the islands in the Central Philippines. It delivered 502.6 mm of rain over a period of about 168 hrs (PAGASA, 2008), inundating almost 90 percent of Iloilo Province municipalities. This resulted in landslides in the mountain ranges in Central Iloilo covering the flooded areas in thick silt and mud and causing a damaging trace on properties and people. The unexpected volume of water drowned infrastructures, destroyed and damaged major bridges paralyzing relief services. The objective of this paper is to come up with run-up elevation maps prepared from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and geomorphic details derived from satellite images, showing the probable areas of inundation due to various flood depths. Elevation data from SRTM was used to model the potential landslide and flooding in the watershed area of the city using a hydraulic model, FLO-2D that runs within a geographical information system (GIS). It is hoped that the descriptive accounts and analyses will help to mitigate future losses from flooding and landslide events at Iloilo and other areas located in the same geological background as the province.

Figure 3. Map of maximum flow depth and maximum velocity for simulation with and without infiltration.

Figure 1. Shaded Relief Map of Iloilo Province. Alluvial fans are in three different shades of black: Sibalom Alluvial Fan (80% black at 50% transparency, left); Iloilo City Alluvial Fan (white at 50% transparency, middle), and Jaro Alluvial Fan (80% black at 50% transparency, right).In black and blue polylines are the municipal boundaries and rivers overlain by two major basins: Sibalom-Sta. Clara (green) and Jaro-Iloilo (light blue). In red polygon are areas inundated by 0 to 5 meters of flood waters.

Figure 4. Hazard Map for the 18-22 June 2008 rainfall event. Red areas have flood heights greater than 1.5 m, orange areas have flood heights of 0.5-1.5 m and yellow areas have flood heights less than 0.5 m. CONCLUSIONS
A 7-day simulation of Typhoon Frank event on FLO-2D using a 360-grid, 90 m resolution SRTM has produced a hazard map with peak water discharge of about 423 m3/s (with infiltration) and about 424.32 /s (without infiltration) between the 24hour period of 20-21 June 2008. A total of at least 1165 m3 (with infiltration) and 1177 m3 (without infiltration) of flood water were released towards Iloilo City. Comparing the result of the FLO-2D simulation with the density slicing of the 90-m SRTM, areas with the highest flooding hazards are the same. These area is at the downstream of Iloilo River that traverses parallel to the bay.

Figure 2. Recorded and cumulative amounts of rainfall during Typhoon Fengshen. PAGASA has two recording stations in Iloilo Province, Dumangas and Iloilo City. (PAGASA, 2008).