Tropical Storm Washi (known locally as Sendong) inundated the southern Philippines island of Mindanao with heavy rain on December 16-17, 2011. Flooded rivers gushed into coastal communities from the interior, destroying 10,345 houses as of December 20, local time. The floods killed 957 people and injured 1,582, affecting nearly 340,000. The cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan received the most damage.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired the top image on December 19, 2011. The rivers that run through both cities are swollen and brown with run-off compared to an image taken by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite just days earlier. Additional indications of flooding are the plumes of sediment that flow into the ocean from the mud- and debris-choked rivers.
NASA images courtesy LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
