A nearly 300-year-old settlement once submerged beneath a major dam in the Philippines has reemerged as sweltering heat and drought dry up the reservoir. Structures, including part of a church, tombstones and a municipal hall marker, reappeared in the middle of Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija province in March after months of almost no rain, Marlon Paladin, a supervising engineer for the National Irrigation Administration, told AFP. The area was deliberately flooded in the 1970s in the dam’s construction. But a drought currently affecting about half of the country’s provinces has pushed the dam’s water levels down, according to AFP. Figures from the Philippine government’s weather agency, PAGASA, show those levels on April 30 were nearly 50 meters (160 feet) lower than normal. Paladin told AFP that this is the sixth time the settlement has resurfaced since the creation of the reservoir, but “this is the longest time [it was…
