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Sunday, March 05, 2006
Kalinga is 4th slide-prone area in RP
KALINGA is a geo-hazard and there is a need to prepare and take action before disaster strikes unnoticed, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said Saturday.
Engineer Ricardo Dang-iw of the DENR-Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) said like any other province in the country, Kalinga is classified as a geo-hazard and fourth among the 10 most landslide-prone areas.
While categorized by the DENR-MGB as less vulnerable on soil mass movements, landslides have already taken a high toll: 36 lives perished on mud and drown down the river in three major and separate disaster incidents.
Eighteen pocket miners were swallowed by mudslide at Nacacanan, Balatoc, Pasil in 1987; 15 farmers flashed into the Chico River in Bangad, Tinglayan on Oct. 15, 1998; and three from Uma, Lubuagan were carried down the Pasil River in 2004. Properties and farms were destroyed in Lubo, Tanudan in 1972 when mudslide nearly wiped out the whole village and communities were isolated for long period.
These are partial scenarios from the wrath of nature and the result of wanton destruction on the environment, happened and forgotten and only remembered until the tragic incident that buried the whole Barangay of Guinsaugon in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte.
"But disaster in that degree continues to wreak havoc on our lives as we chose to ignore doing our responsibilities and dissuade the advice of experts," said Dang-iw, whose office recommended to abandon Kimatan in Lubuagan and Ampatting in Tinglayan due to foreseen risks.
More victims perished from floods and drowning aside from millions of pesos worth of infrastructures, properties and crops destroyed yearly. Last month, the province was declared under a state of calamity for losing P71.5 million to typhoon Agaton.
"As far as Kalinga is concerned, we have not learned our lessons yet. We continue to defy the natural law for a balanced ecology," said Dang-iw, who presented a simpler picture on geo-hazards the country have.
He said the entire country is environmentally critical based on Presidential Decree (PD) 1586 classification.
Besides being a typhoon belt, the Philippines is surrounded by a ring of fire, an archipelago of volcanic islands sitting on the rim of the unstable undersea Philippine Trench, traversed by fault lines and its eastern seaboard prone to landslide.
In Kalinga, Dang-iw said two major fault lines pass through a northeasterly direction from Mountain Province to Tinglayan -- Mountain Mosimos-Lubuagan-Pasil-Balbalan. Another one passes through the same route from the corner boundary of Mountain Province and Abra to Tinglayan-Lubuagan and ends at Gobgob, Tabuk.
He said a national geo-hazard mapping is ongoing and Kalinga is the next target after heavily affected areas are completed.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo released P80 million to complete the geo-hazard mapping project. In support to the President's directive, provincial officials of Kalinga through the Provincial Board (PB) and Councilors' League president Alfredo Malannag Jr. requested the Philippine Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) and the MGB to conduct studies on disaster prone areas in the province in aid of legislation and a tool in planning local initiatives to mitigate effects.
For people to understand why Kalinga is geo-hazard, Dang-iw said the province's topography is unfriendly: rolling terrain, steep gradients, highly exposed to erosion.
He said fault lines trigger tectonic tremors causing differential settlement like what happened in Butbut Proper, Tinglayan in 1990 when part of it sunk, so with the Patiking sinking road; torrential rainfall caused landslide and flooding as well as forest denudation.
Also, he said the agricultural plains of Tabuk incurred the biggest lost in terms of damages. During prolonged rainfall, flooding also occurred due to high siltation of channel ways.
The presence of sulfataric emission, hot springs and experienced tremors are signs that the province is a volcanic area, Dang-iw said. Tremor coupled with rains can cause landslide and river cutting, posing danger on settlement. The artificial dam in Puapo by a landslide from the Amdalao slope in Pasil could have destroyed the villages down the Pasil River if not for boulders that served as foundation.
(March 5, 2006 issue)
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