With the country hit regularly by typhoons, torrential floods, killer landslides, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, by now there should be a high level of preparedness and mitigation protocols for disasters.
The scenes in Cebu following the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck the province on Sept. 30 show that this has not been so.
A week after the earthquake, many of the affected communities continue to lack the most basic needs, particularly safe water and emergency shelters. The earthquake caused heavy damage to water pipes and electrical and telecommunications networks. With no electricity to run pumps, small suppliers of filtered drinking water could not resume operations.
Among the most telling illustrations of weak emergency response were the images of people sleeping inside plastic bags in Medellin town to keep out the rain. Continuing aftershocks made people fear further damage to their homes. They opted to stay outdoors, but it was clear that there was an acute lack of waterproof tents for outdoor emergency shelter.
In San Remigio town, over a dozen sinkholes have appeared including in portions of the town proper, damaging homes and infrastructure and raising fears of further ground collapse. Emergency responders are just starting to set up tent communities amid the possibility of long-term reconstruction.
The Philippine Red Cross was among the first to provide waterproof outdoor tents with roofing to the quake-hit areas. As of yesterday, so-called tent cities had taken shape, but still inadequate for the many families that have either lost their houses or remained fearful of returning to their homes.
In 2013, such tent cities sprung up across Eastern Visayas following the apocalyptic destruction unleashed by Super Typhoon Yolanda. If the tents, mostly donated by the international community, had seriously deteriorated over the years, shouldn’t at least some of them have been replaced for emergencies, especially since Cebu and neighboring provinces have been hit by destructive earthquakes, typhoons and floods in recent years?
Many evacuation centers in the country are woefully inadequate – in space, sanitation and health facilities and other basic creature comforts. The sorry state of evacuation centers is among the reasons why people are reluctant to leave their homes for safer ground even with the approach of powerful typhoons.
This shouldn’t be the case, considering that the country has been ranked at the top of the global disaster risk index and is among the most vulnerable to climate change. The dire situation in the quake-hit areas of Cebu should lead to better disaster preparedness.