In macabre Manila street scene, woman crawls out of storm drain

A woman was seen crawling out of a storm drain on a busy street in Manila's main financial district in a scene straight out of a horror movie about a deep well-dwelling, spectral serial killer.

Images that have gone viral in the Philippines show a lithe young woman pulling herself out of the drain at around 5pm on May 26 at a street corner in Makati city.

Her dress and denim shorts were caked with grime, and her hair was long, unwashed and streaked with dirt and dried leaves.

As she made her way out of the drain, her head turned to the man taking her photos.

She smiled and, after crawling out of the hole, ran towards him as a motorist wearing a military-style uniform chased her.

"She ran past me, the military guy in pursuit. A few pedestrians, motorcyclists, and even the traffic enforcer, just stood there, stunned, confused, maybe even a little amused," William, who posted the woman's photos on his Instagram account under the name iammrthirty, told the online magazine site Spot.ph. He declined to give his full name.

His photos have been seen by close to two million viewers on YouTube and Facebook when they were picked up by local TV network GMA News. 

William, an amateur street photographer, said the hole the woman crawled out of was wider than the typically narrow storm drain.

"The catch area of the canal was relatively spacious (almost as big as some rooms for rent in the city)… Even closer, you could see a pipe on the bottom of the catch, a pipe big enough for humans to crawl through," he told Spot.ph.

He said he went back a day later and saw city officials and security guards repaving the street corner where the storm drain is located.

He said they told him they did not know where the pipe the woman hid in led to.

The city officials said they have seen vagrants and street dwellers taking shelter in sewer tunnels near creeks, and the woman may have been part of this largely unseen, often ignored cohort.

There are over three million homeless people across Metro Manila – a sprawling metropolis of 16 cities with a combined population of some 14 million.

They live in shanties, makeshift pushcarts colloquially known as "kariton", and wherever they can find shelter – by the side of the road, at cemeteries and apparently in storm drains and sewage tunnels.

The Borgen Project – a US-based non-profit – said extreme poverty, domestic violence, human trafficking and natural disasters are the usual push factors behind homelessness in the Philippines.

Homeless women and children are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of battery, domestic abuse, trafficking or exploitation, it said.

William, the street photographer, said the images he took are "a reminder that Makati's streets hold more stories than we sometimes care to see – and that behind the high rises and the hustle, there are people who live between the cracks – literally".