Floods, landslides,rescue drama

Torrential rain flooded many sectors of Panama City on Friday afternoon, April 27,  bringing down trees,  causing minor landslides stranding transit passengers and school buses and leading to a dramatic rescue of a woman driver whose car was swept into a ravine in San Miguelito.

The National Civil System (Sinaproc) reported that they had had to assist several people, but the outstanding rescue came from three unidentified men who were part of a watching crowd as a car was picked up by flood waters and spun around on a road behind the station in San Miguelito.

Videos of the car as it was dragged towards a roadside ravine before it plunged into fast flowing waters went viral on social networks.

The three young men climbed down to the vehicle with its front in the torrent and rescued the woman driver through the back.

The Joint Task Force  attended flooded homes, fallen trees and minor landslides  in the area known as  La Rosita in Río Abajo, and in six streets of  Parque Lefevre and sector 5 of Samaria

The sewage system was blocked in the San Isidro Valley and three people  trapped by the overflow of a ravine in Pueblo Nuevo were rescued by the Task Force.

In other areas school buses were trapped in suddenly  rising waters and people waiting for Metro buses used the benches to stand  clear of the floods.