Factors behind
Guinsaugon Disaster
The crisis facing thousands of survivors
of a killer landslide that buried Barangay Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town,
Southern Leyte more than three weeks ago refuses to rest. Despite
concerted rescue and retrieval operations by the international aid groups,
only 152 bodies were unearthed from the sludge zone while more than 900
individuals are still missing and presumed dead.
BY DENNIS ESPADA
Bulatlat
The crisis facing
thousands of survivors of a killer landslide that buried Barangay
Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town, Southern Leyte more than three weeks ago
refuses to rest. Despite concerted rescue and retrieval operations by the
international aid groups, only 152 bodies were unearthed from the sludge
zone while more than 900 individuals are still missing and presumed dead.
Natural calamities do
happen, as both disaster managers and environment experts took turns in
telling the public that we could have done something to prevent it or
reduce its impact.
Yet, vain efforts are
carried out only when the damage has been done.
Triggering
and conditioning factors
Ricarido Saturay Jr.,
a geologist from the National Institute of Geological Sciences, University
of the Philippines (UP-NIGS) believes that the disaster may have been
caused by two factors: first, the triggering factors which are the direct
and immediate causes and second, the conditioning factors which had
already been in place long before the disaster took place.
Fifteen years ago, a
parallel catastrophe claimed the lives of 8,000 residents in Ormoc
City. Since the horrifying
flashfloods and landslides that killed more than 200 people in Panaon
Island in December 2003, Saturay said, measures to address both factors
were non-existent or at the least, not implemented even after Saint
Bernard town was identified as "landslide-prone" area by the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources' Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB)
on that same year.
“The intensity and
amount of rainfall would be the most suspect triggering factor,” Saturay
explained in a statement. “The reported earthquake could be discounted
considering its low magnitude, epicentral distance to the site, and the
timing of the two events. The conditioning factors are those that we have
good knowledge of, such as weak rocks due to the Philippine Fault zone,
thick soils due to the climate and steep slopes. The land cover and land
use also fall into this category.”
Budget constraints
and lack of personnel are the topmost dilemma and the national government
is certainly aware of this.
“In other countries,”
Saturay said, “potential amount and intensity of incoming rain has been
successfully measured using precipitation radars. A good network of rain
gauges sending out near-real time data or even crude locally based rain
gauges can give a warning a few hours before a disaster. However, the
PAGASA (Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services
Administration) does not have a very good network of rain gauges in the
area, much more precipitation radars.”
Saturay said the MGB
could have created a detailed geologic hazard map but with its limited
resources, it proved to be an impossible endeavor. DENR sources said that
the agency has desisted from taking on the task due to complaints that
such maps tend to downgrade the value of land properties and thus,
discourage investors.
As long as the
country’s science and technology remain backward, Saturay said, it would
be difficult not only to generate the necessary knowledge to forecast a
disaster but also to disseminate these to the public.
Unprepared
Every year, the
country is battered by at least 317 disasters, according to the Citizens
Disaster Response Center (CDRC). They said the figures have increased in
the last decade, from 408 in 1995 to last year's 440, affecting a total of
9.9 and 10.4 million people respectively.
While the government
allocates 30 percent of the annual budget to foreign debt servicing, it
spends a measly 0.1 percent for calamity funds.
To make matters
worse, CDRC said, funds allocated or donated for the victim's needs are
lost to corruption. The National Disaster and Coordinating Council (NDCC)
has to account for the millions of funds and relief aid in the aftermath
of Quezon and Aurora tragedies in 2004.
For environmental
protection groups, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration should be held
liable for the calamity in Saint Bernard, particularly because of its
failure to devise a disaster management program at the community level,
including geo-hazard information, land-use planning, early warning system
and evacuation procedures.
Clemente Bautista
Jr., national coordinator of Kalikasan-People's Network for the
Environment (KPNE) called for “immediate relocation to safer grounds of
communities at risk from landslides and flashfloods, and the provision not
only of relief but of alternative livelihood and services to displaced
communities.”
Plunder as
“real state of emergency”
KPNE is convenor of
Environment and Natural Resource Advocates for Gloria’s Expulsion
(Enraged), an alliance of environmentalists calling for President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo’s removal from office.
Illegal commercial
logging, for instance, were blamed for denuding the forests of Quezon
province. Experts consider mining liberalization as the culprit behind the
devastation of freshwater, mountains and coastal ecosystems.
With large-scale
extractive industries for export, Bautista said, the country’s natural
resources is on the brink of ruin, while countless people are already
deprived of their right to inhale clean air, drink safe water, eat
nutritious food and dwell in a hazard-free environment. Bulatlat
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