INSTEAD of wearing a pair of shoes, Lolita Berdin, 20, opted to use her slippers in visiting her departed loved ones in the flooded Municipal Cemetery in Barangay Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City yesterday.
Since Sunday night, the cemetery has been flooded because of heavy rains and the lack of drainage in the area.
As of noon yesterday, personnel of the Lapu-Lapu City Clean and Green Office were still draining the water using a motor pump and directing it to a drainage located about 100 meters away from the cemetery.
Like Berdin, other people who went to the cemetery also wore slippers.
Berdin was fortunate enough to light candles and offer flowers on the graves of her departed loved ones as the water there already subsided. But for visitors whose loved ones were buried at the interior portion of the cemetery, they couldn’t do so because the water was still knee-deep.
Allan Berame, a staff of the City Clean and Green Office, said that his team started draining the rain water at 6 a.m. last Monday, and the work will continue until all the floodwaters are siphoned off.
Berame said that the siphoning process took long because they only have one machine.
He said there are at least four persons who lost their balance and got soaked because of the flood.
SPO2 Frederick Anongos of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Station 3, one of those who manned the traffic leading to the cemetery, said that they have not received any untoward incident.
SPO4 Remegio Ngujo of Lapu-Lapu City Police Office said that only a few people were apprehended for bringing prohibited objects and liquors at the cemetery.
The visitors also did not stay long at the cemetery because of the flood.
In Mandaue City, Senior Insp. Janelito Marquez, Police Station 1 chief, said that two children got lost but were eventually reunited to their mothers yesterday.
He said at least 15,000 people went to the four public and private cemeteries in Mandaue.