Roperos: Tsunami alarm

Monday, February 6, 2012

THE earthquake that hit parts of the Visayas yesterday stirred something more than just a hornet’s nest. I am referring to the “after-shock” that followed the quake, which was the fear of tsunami hitting the city. And so people living along the coast, from Toledo City to Asturias in my part of Cebu island, flooded the highland.

Things would not have worsened had not local authorities went the rounds hauling people living by the seaside to safer, higher grounds. But the real menace was the rumors about a tsunami.

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It was actually a wild talk that seawater in some areas had started to sweep into coastal villages. People living in the interior then communicated with close friends and kin in the coastal areas, seeking to verify the rumors. People living outside the city did the same to their friends and kin in the city. Some even asked if seawater had flooded Colon St.

After lunch, some of our neighbors came to our place to ask where and when we would move out to higher grounds. I called up the Sun.Star editorial offices to inquire and the information that we got put us at peace, prompting us to settle back and finish my after-lunch nap.

It was, however, a deeply disturbed nap because we still received stories that people from our town’s coastal villages continued to leave their homes to stay on higher grounds for the night.

Friends who passed by the house on the way out of the poblacion informed me that some coastal barangay leaders secured dump trucks and hauled their people to upland villages where they felt they would be safer from the expected giant waves. I could not help noticing the number of men, women, and children bearing bundles of belongings toward the safety in the mountains. But I decided not to move out of our house.

What the false tsunami alarm revealed to me is that with modern information technology, our people can now be easily driven to panic.

Hence, those who have direct and immediate access to the use of these information tools should be more aware and conscious of their public responsibility, and muster enough discipline and maturity to stay calm and prevent themselves from using the opportunity to enhance their private interest, and strengthen their own power and influence for personal ends.

Indeed, the tremor yesterday noon and the aftershocks hours later clearly demonstrated how easily the media can be used for good or evil ends. In a situation where forces of Mother Nature are generally the star players, modern media technology takes on highly valuable roles as instruments of human survival.

They are the tools that make nature’s destructive forces appear puny and beatable.