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There are an estimated 4 million slum dwellers living in Manila as of 2014.
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Tondo
Tondo is located in the north-west portion of Manila and is primarily residential-industrial in nature. Tondo is known for being one of the poorest and most underdeveloped areas of the country. Many of the city's slums are found in this area. Tondo has a land area of 5.64 km². With a population of 407,330 (2007) Tondo's density is 72,222 persons per km².
Payatas
When the notorious Smokey Mountain rubbish dump in Tondo was closed by the government in 1995, many rubbish scavengers migrated to the Payatas dump site, where another large scavenging community arose. The population of Payatas is notoriously difficult to estimate. The official census states the population at almost 120,000 people (Census, 2010), but academic source suggest the real population to be closer to 500,000 (Gaillard and Cadag, 2009).
In the year 2000, a landslide at the Payatas dump killed over three hundred scavengers. This official figure, though, is also likely highly underestimated with eyewitnesses suggesting the real death toll is closer to 1,000.
San Andres
San Andres is the second most densely populated district in Manila after Tondo.
Bagong Silangan
Bangong Silangan is infamous as a squatters' area after street dwellers from central Manila were relocated here from the 1970s onwards. The name of the barangay came from bagong silang, the Tagalog word for "newborn". The namesake of the barangay was meant to signify "a new hope" for most of its residents who were originally relocated from slum areas in Tondo in Manila, Commonwealth in Quezon City, and San Juan.
Environmental impact
In September 2009 Tropical Storm Ketsana hit Metro Manila and dumped one month's rainfall in less than 24 hours, causing the Marikina River system, including the Manggahan Floodway, to burst its banks very rapidly. It is thought that blocked pipes and a poorly maintained sewer system, along with uncollected domestic waste, were major contributory factors in the speed with which the flood waters were able to engulf the surrounding area.
Illegal settlers were especially blamed for flooding since their houses reduce the effective width and blocked the flow of the floodway. During the height of the storm, the Marikina River had a flow of about 3000 m³/s (106,000 ft³/s), and the head of the UP National Hydraulic Research Center stated that the floodway could have handled this flow without overflowing if there were no settlers on its banks.
Consequently, in February 2010, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo revoked Proclamation 160 that reserved 20 parcels of land along the floodway for 6,700 urban poor families, and ordered the forcible relocation of the illegal settlers whose houses were blocking the waterway to Laguna de Bay.