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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
RP should brace for tsunami threats, officials say (2 p.m.)
BUHATAN -- Although it escaped the deadly 2004 tsunami that ravaged its neighbors, the Philippines should brace for killer waves because it lies in a geologically dangerous region and has a recent history of tsunami devastation, officials said Tuesday.
The Philippines is among more than two dozen countries joining an unprecedented drill on Wednesday to test a tsunami warning system in the Pacific Ocean. A Pacific warning system has been in place since 1965, but a full ocean-wide exercise has never taken place.
"It's important always to be prepared, that we do not expose people to hazards of disastrous events," said Renato Solidum Jr., head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, or Phivolcs, which monitors volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunami.
"That's better than having to do a search and rescue later," he said.
During the drill early Wednesday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii will send out warnings about mock earthquakes off the Chilean coast and Luzon island in the northern Philippines that are powerful enough to set off a tsunami across the vast ocean.
Governments will test if and how fast they receive the warnings and how rapidly they are relayed down domestic emergency alert systems. While other countries will stop at that, the Philippines will stage an evacuation of residents in the far-flung coastal village of Buhatan in Santo Domingo town in Albay province, 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of Manila.
Isolated by mountains and distance, normally laid-back Buhatan was a beehive of activity on Tuesday as Phivolcs personnel installed roadside metal signs pointing the way to safety during the drill.
Huge streamers announced the "first-ever trans-Pacific tsunami drill" called "Exercise Pacific Wave 2006." Children milled around, gawking at outsiders and journalists.
"We're so happy some people are advising us how to deal with such a disaster. I won't be as nervous if it does happen," said Sonia Siapno, a 54-year-old housewife.
Simplicio Balmas, a 74-year-old retired fisherman with 11 children, understood the urgency of the drill and has been walking briskly lately to be able to join the mock evacuation despite his arthritis. Balmas said he saw how a powerful typhoon brought walls of seawater crashing on Buhatan, killing 13 villagers in the early 1950s.
"I don't want to see that scene again. There were so many dead people and people looked so helpless," he said. "I know we're doing a lifesaving exercise, but I still feel nervous," he said as he stood by the sun-splashed Albay Gulf, its waves gently slapping the shore.
Buhatan, sandwiched between the gulf and the Philippine Sea, is often lashed by typhoons and has been hit by ashfalls and debris from the nearby Mayon volcano. A narrow road leading to the village was partly blocked by landslides from a storm last week.
Despite lurking dangers, there is no police station, hospital, fire station or telephone lines. Some villagers rely on cell phones or simply rush to a town nine kilometers (five miles) away aboard motorcycle taxis during an emergency.
While the villagers are no strangers to typhoons and volcanic eruptions, hardly anyone was aware Buhatan could be hit by a tsunami until Phivolcs officials explained the nature of the tsunami drill, said Rene Arante of Phivolcs.
An archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines is flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the east and the South China Sea to the west with undersea trenches - potential quake triggers - running alongside its coast on both sides. The country has been struck by about 40 tsunami in the past 400 years, Solidum said.
A 7.9-magnitude quake generated tsunami waves in the Moro Gulf in the sou6, killing about 3,700 people. Another powerful earthquake set off by a local fault whipped up killer waves that killed 78 people on Mindoro island, south of Manila, in 1994, Solidum said.(AP)
(Reposted with updates) |
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