Heavy showers brought floods upon Manila, capital of the Philippines, wreaking havoc and leaving behind debris and a thick layer of mud on roads and inside homes.
Continuous rains triggered by Typhoon Gaemi and the southwest monsoon caused flooding that paralyzed the city and other parts of the main Luzon Island on Wednesday.
In Marikina, a suburb of Manila, the rainfall caused the Marikina River to swell, depositing mud and leaving fish stranded on the roads after the flood receded.
Local residents said the floods have forced them to take time off from work to clean up their roads and homes. For resident Justine Calubiran, the flood rose as high as the second floor of her house.
"It's so hard because the flood is intense, high. And it is so fast to go high. And look, it's a mess after the flood, so it is not so good for us because we have work too. We can't go to work because we need to clean this mess," she said.
"The flood caused a lot of problems for us. We live in a bungalow, so we had to move everything to higher ground. It was really challenging. We need food and have had to take time off work to clean up the mud. There was so much mud after the flood, and it's really hard to clean, especially with kids at home," said Jane Delapena Ercee, another resident.
Philippine residents struggle to restore livelihoods after floods spread mud to homes
Chinese President Xi Jinping's keynote speech at the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit resonated with the common aspiration of more than 2.8 billion Chinese and African people and demonstrated China's firm will of moving forward hand-in-hand with Africa along the path of development, revitalization and modernization, several participants at the event have said.
In his speech on Thursday, Xi proposed that bilateral relations between China and all African countries having diplomatic ties with China be elevated to the level of strategic relations, and that the overall characterization of China-Africa relations be elevated to an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era.
He also announced that the Chinese government will provide 360 billion yuan (about 50.8 billion U.S. dollars) of financial support to Africa over the next three years.
"Everyone was happy to hear those news, so everyone was clapping. So now we are going to a higher level of relations between China and Africa," said Hamidou, a counselor at the Embassy of Comoros in Beijing.
"China understands Africa's urgent desire to advance modernization. We can learn a lot from China's development," said Foreign Minister of Burkina Faso Karamoko Jean Marie Traore.
Xi also suggested 10 partnership actions for modernization that China will take together with Africa in the next three years to deepen China-Africa cooperation and spearhead modernization in the Global South.
"President Xi, through his long vision of the needs of countries and his interest in supporting development, has offered this as a real vehicle to promote exports of Africa to China, which is a huge market," said Alaa Ezz, secretary general of the Union of African Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture, and Professions (UACCIAP).
"As he told this morning, we have many projects in digitalization, in capacity building, in health centers, support for health, for infrastructure, in the framework of the Belt and [Road]. And we think that we are very satisfied with this partnership. This is a win-win partnership," said Gabriel Mbairobe, Cameroon's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Held in Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, the 2024 FOCAC summit brought together leaders from China and over 50 African countries, who highlighted the common pursuit of China and African countries in realizing modernization.
During the summit, both sides unanimously adopted two important documents -- a declaration on jointly building an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era, and an action plan of the FOCAC for the next three years.
Xi's speech at FOCAC summit resonates with people's common aspiration: participants
