Dagupan sets responders’ protocol during quake, tsunami
THE Dagupan City government has been holding series of meetings with various stakeholders for the formulation of a standard protocol for responders if a high-magnitude earthquake or tsunami strikes.
Mayor Belen Fernandez said the protocol is necessary so that no citizen will be left behind whenever mass evacuation is ordered following a high-magnitude quake and tsunami if the quake occurs off shore.
This was stressed by the mayor after a magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit Taiwan last week that crushed and tilted infrastructures, killing and injuring a number of people, plus 1,000 others who went missing.
City Risk Reduction and Management Officer Ronald de Guzman said even if the Big One’ happens in Metro Manila, there is no guarantee that Pangasinan and Dagupan City will be spared, hence the need to be ready at all times.
On order of Mayor Fernandez, the CDRRMC, Public Alert Response and Monitoring Center, Dagupan Police and other departments of the city have ramped up simultaneous earthquake and tsunami drills in schools and barangays so that learners and village folks will know what to do to save themselves when either or both earthquake and tsunami occur.
Officials of the Philippine Institute of volcanology and Seismology confirmed that Pangasinan is surrounded by three earthquake faults, each one capable of triggering a ‘’Big One’ in the province.
These are the San Manuel Fault in the east, the Zambales Fault in the south and the Manila Trench, some 100 kilometers off Bolinao that could generate a seven-meter high tsunami in Dagupan.
Fernandez recently directed PARMC to finalize arrangements with Privately-hosted Evacuation Centers that signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the city to serve as temporary evacuation centers of their neighbors when a tsunami strikes.
Fernandez also said the P25 million financial assistance from Senator Sonny Angara for the planned four-storey evacuation Center for One Bonuan in Bonuan Boquig is expected in four months.
She earlier asked the Department of Education to construct only three-storey school buildings so these can also serve as evacuation centers. (Leonardo Micua)
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