CALASIAO, Pangasinan, Philippines—Residents displaced by floods in Rosales town fished out grocery items that floated out of a shopping mall here on Friday, and mall officials on Saturday belied ealier reports of looting.

The SM City Rosales lost items from its supermarket on the main floor, which was submerged in floodwater that reached almost five feet at the height of tropical depression ‘Pepeng,’ said mall spokesperson Gerlou del Rosario.

About 1,300 people were stranded inside the mall starting Thursday, when heavy rains and water released from the San Roque Dam in San Manuel town raised floodwaters in the area.

The floods also rendered the national highway in that town impassable.

Hans Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings Inc., went to Rosales on Friday morning on a helicopter, to distribute relief goods to stranded shoppers and employees at the mall, said Karren Nobres-Padilla, spokesperson of SM City Baguio.

Floods receded on Friday night, allowing about a 100 company engineers and maintenance crew from Metro Manila to help secure the building and start repairs on Saturday morning, Del Rosario said.

She said reports about looting in the one-year-old mall, among the newest in SM’s chain of malls, were inaccurate.

‘News that we were looted was wrong. We just let [the items float]. But we still do not know how much we lost [in the storm],’ she told the Inquirer. She said the grocery items were covered by insurance.