Philippine govt warns of cuts in water, power supplies as drought looms

Philippine govt warns of cuts in water, power supplies as drought looms

	Published : Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:41 By : Agencies Print this Story

MANILA (Thomson Financial) - A prolonged dry spell in the Philippines has raised the possibility of water shortages and power cuts here in the capital and surrounding areas, officials said Thursday.

The presidential palace said President Gloria Arroyo had asked the public to save water and had ordered all government agencies to prepare for a drought if the rains do not come by August.

Falling levels of water behind certain dams have affected the operations of hydroelectric plants that provide power to metropolitan Manila and surrounding areas, forcing the state-run National Power Corp (Napocor) to introduce daily three-hour outages, which started Wednesday, Napocor said.

'We are in fact already undertaking [cloud-]seeding operations over our dams to stimulate precipitation to produce rain. However, we must at least have natural clouds to produce positive results from the seeding,' Napocor said.

Sources in Napocor said power was already being diverted from its coal-fired plants to minimize the need for power cuts in the capital.

Science Undersecretary Graciano Yumul has said metropolitan Manila received minimal rainfall in June and virtually no rainfall so far in July, and that if the dry spell continued in August, the weather bureau would have to declare a drought in the area and in other parts of the main island of Luzon.

Arroyo has ordered water-impounding -- storing available water in wells and cisterns -- as a short-term solution.

For the long term, she has called for the rehabilitation of deep wells, the planting of drought-resistant crops, the modification of the cropping calendar and the monitoring of the levels of ground water.

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