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Business booms for car mechanics after Philippine floods
Manila (AFP) Oct 1, 2009 Louie Santa Maria has barely slept since deadly floods swept through Manila on Saturday. But the auto dealer has no complaints with business booming as car owners seek help for their water-logged vehicles. "I don't see us clearing the backlog before Christmas," said Santa Maria, manager of a chain of Honda dealerships and repair shops in the eastern part of the Philippine capital where floodwaters reached as high as six metres (20 feet). "People are still calling up to get their vehicles scheduled for repairs, but we are just putting them on the wait list now. This has been overwhelming." Outside, 37 sedans and sport utility vehicles, all drenched in a uniform coating of tan mud, were awaiting their turn to be repaired. On the street, private towing trucks were unloading two more Hondas as their owners argued with traffic police, who wanted to cite them for traffic obstruction. Accountant Mary Jo Meneses visited another auto repair shop in Metro Manila's Pasig city -- some areas of which remained flooded five days after the disaster -- to canvass repair costs for her family's van, jeep and sedan. "It all happened so fast," she told AFP. "We managed to drive them out of the garage (to higher ground), but the waters still reached them." Shop manager Alexander Gonzales told Meneses that an engine and cabin cleanup for each vehicle would cost at least 10,000 pesos (210 dollars), on top of 1,500 pesos each for towing. But if water had clogged the engine and an onboard computer which controls many functions of modern vehicles, it would cause a lot more grief -- and money. "There is a 50-50 chance that we will be able to start the engine as long as the electronic control unit was not damaged. We advise car owners to disconnect the battery cables," Gonzales said. His open-air shop was crammed with mud-coated vehicles. Soiled carpets, seats, and steamed up headlamps were being left to dry under the sun. Gonzales said he was overwhelmed by the number of drivers in need of help. "Those that do not live nearby we just turn away," Gonzales said. One major headache facing distressed vehicle owners has been the shock of learning that their insurance policies do not cover "acts of God", such as natural disasters. "The provision for 'acts of God' is not automatic unless you ask for it," auto executive Santa Maria said. For Meneses, the quest to get her cash-strapped family's cars repaired would be put on hold until they could secure a loan. However, Santa Maria was making no apologies for cashing in on other people's misfortune, even though he understood their plight. "This is not plain and simple business. This is business that touches on the misery of the people. But we are giving them the best that we can do," Santa Maria said. Other industries are also profiting from the floods, which claimed at least 277 lives and affected more than 2.5 million people in Manila and neighbouring areas. Home appliance shops, for example, have reported a rise in sales as people replace fridges, televisions, fans and other household items destroyed in the floods. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Humans also to blame for Impact of Asia's natural disastersManila (AFP) Oct 1, 2009 Environmental damage, shoddy urban planning, corruption and other man-made problems are magnifying the human cost of natural disasters almost every time they strike in Asia, experts said. Thousands of people have died across the region this week in a relentless string of events that at first may seem to be the fault of Mother Nature, but the enormous death tolls can be equally blamed on peop ... read more |
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