WELL, they can’t say they haven’t been warned.
And get this, they were told about the danger five years ago yet.
So if something happens, God forbid, like what happened in the early morning of Sept. 20 in Sitio Sindulan, Barangay Tina-an in the City of Naga, residents of Sitio Sandayong, a hamlet in the mountain barangay of Buhisan, Cebu City, have no one to blame but themselves.
They had been told they need to evacuate. But most of them would rather risk life and limb than move. Not that I blame them.
As Buhisan Barangay Captain Gremar Barete pointed out, these people have nowhere else to go. Not only that, they have no money to start life anew somewhere else.
So they’re relying on hope the thick foliage would hold together the soil and rocks whenever there’s a heavy downpour or continuous rainfall.
Of course, it’s not the kind of life that anyone would wish for. Always afraid that rainwater is not the only thing that falls on the ground when it rains.
The fissure that runs down the mountainside first appeared right after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Cebu and Bohol on Oct. 15, 2013.
The quake had triggered a landslide back then, but no one was reported injured. Some houses were damaged, though.
Two months after, the geohazard assessment of the October quake revealed that the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) 7 had submitted a landslide threat advisory to Barete, who was also barangay captain during that time.
“The occurrence of several tension cracks located near the crown of the new landslide is a sign that there is a possibility of further movement and expansion of the landslide. During heavy and continuous rains, water will enter inside these tension cracks and may trigger reactivation of the said landslide,” reads a portion of the report.
So you can understand why 67-year-old Lado Parbak, whose family has been living in the area for two decades, told SunStar Cebu’s Rona T. Fernandez that life in Sitio Sandayong can sometimes be scary. Especially when rocks started falling from the mountaintop.
There are 30 houses right below the slope where the crack is found. Some 300 persons live there.
The MGB 7 had strongly recommended that they be relocated immediately to a safer, elevated and stable ground. The agency also recommended placing signage and permanent barriers near the affected area. It also wants barangay personnel to regularly monitor movement of old and new tension cracks and landslides, especially during heavy and continuous rains.
The residents are still there. There are no signs and permanent barriers near the affected area. I doubt the barangay has assigned personnel to monitor earth movement regularly, although I don’t think they’d know what to look for anyway.
In other words, MGB 7’s advice has been ignored.
“The danger is still there, and the danger was identified five years ago by MGB,” said Marian Codilla, MGB 7 information officer.
After what happened in Naga, I hope people would have learned their lesson by now.