I wrote to Bobby Henderson, about his personal experience at the Mag-aso Falls in Bohol island in the Philipines.
He replied with an approval to share his near death experience in this nature's adventure's blog so that more reader will be aware of the flash flood, which can happen at any waterfall especially after rain.
Below is his account of the incidents,....................
We ( Bobby & his girl friend Harlene) , were visiting a waterfall and a flash flood came out of nowhere.
It was June 30/2009 We had just got there it has been raining but stopped.
The falls are about 25ft tall, The water collects in a pool its not deep. There is a bamboo raft.
These guys were swimming/playing on the raft.
They go closer to the falls.
There is some space behind the falls these guys went there.
This is the view down-stream its very shallow..notice the picnic table its the same table shown later.
It got very loud water came out of nowhere..The 2 guys had nowhere to go. I took this picture before i realized what was happening.
This picture was taken perhabs 30 sec later.
Another view downstream thats the same picnic table.
Water is still rising fast.
A view of the falls as they now look. The 2 guys are still there no one else saw the swept away...may be they are still alive.
The water is full of bamboo, mud etc its still surging very loud. At this point there are a lot of people waiting to see if those guys are ok.
This is the last picture i took more than a hour later and the falls are still at flood stage. We left on the last bus to the city. I dont know if those guys made it out alive.
Update: Bohol news did finally report this. The bodies of those 2 guys were discovered more than 5km's downstream.
Update 7/2 – does not sound good – this headline was on the Bohol radio station website:
*SHORT PANTS OF THE MISSING PERSON WHO DROWNED AT MAG ASO FALLS WAS FOUND YESTERDAY AFTERNOON AS RESCUE OPERATIONS CONTINUE
Update 7/4 – we heard that the bodies of both guys were found downstream. Still have not seen anything in the news about this, I am wondering why.
Click on here for the original blog posting
