The moments that followed will be forever seared into Aguirre’s memory. His living room furniture floating; the terrifying few minutes when he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pry the front door open; his son praying to God as the water rose to their chests; his daughter, who can’t swim, perched high on a pillar as water and cars gushed by, inches from her feet.
“I don’t know how we were able to survive. One detail that didn’t go our way and many of us could have died,” Aguirre told CNN.
That morning Typhoon Kalmaegi dumped over a month’s worth of rain, causing rivers and waterways in Cebu to swell and unleashing catastrophic flash flooding that killed more than 230 people nationwide.
