FOR EARTHQUAKE, TSUNAMI

EACH of the Dagupan City’s 31 barangays will craft their own earthquake and tsunami evacuation plans depending on their respective contingencies and given the guidelines issued by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) through its Education Information and Communications.

Mayor Belen Fernandez said the strategy was arrived at to capacitate the barangays to decide how they can best serve and save their constituents from harm in case a high magnitude earthquake and or tsunami hits the city.

She said the plan should include frequent earthquake and a tsunami drills.

As pointed out by the Phivolcs during the forum, the threat to Dagupan of earthquake and tsunami is real because Pangasinan is surrounded by the Manila Trench off Bolinao in the west, the East Zambales Fault in the south and the San Manuel Fault in the East, Fernandez said the people of Dagupan pin their hope on the evacuation plan in each barangays.

With the tools and strategies provided by PhiVolcs, Fernandez believes the barangays can come up with their most effective plans at the shortest time possible.

Phivolcs has designed an app called Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment System (REDAS) which it shared with the city of Dagupan and installed three tsunami warning devices in 3 barangays: Pugaro, Bonuan Gueset and Bonuan Binloc.

All submitted barangay evacuation plans will be validated by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office as well as the Public Alert Response and Monitoring Center, with which the barangays are all linked.

Meanwhile, Fernandez said her administration already launched the Privately-hosted Evacuation Center where owners of high-rise buildings are asked to sign a Memorandum of Agreement with the city with a commitment that they will accommodate their neighbors if and when tsunami or storm surge occur.

She thanked Senator Sonny Angara for donating funds for the construction of  a multi-purpose high-rise building in Bonuan Boquig that could also serve as evacuation center.

It will duplicate the services of the three-storey evacuation center in the island barangay of Salapingao she built during her past administration.

She planned to construct another evacuation center in another island barangay of Pugaro, but it was aborted when she lost in her reelection bid in 2017.

Fernandez said because of the serious threat of tsunami in case the Manila Trench moves, she will only allow a construction of two to three-storey school buildings in the city that can be used as evacuation centers when the emergency arises. (Leonardo Micua)

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