Cebuanos now react better to disasters

CEBU, Philippines - The way Cebuanos reacted to and handled the strong All Saints’ evening aftershock was a manifestation of maturity in terms of disaster preparedness, local officials said.

Unlike the mass hysteria in February 2012 following a false tsunami alert and the most recent post October 16 earthquake hoax warning, Friday’s tremor saw people seeking safe grounds calmly. No one was running and screaming, even those at the cemeteries.

Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office operations head Alvin Santillana saw this as a sign of progress in terms of disaster preparedness.

“When that long and strong tremor shook, people were not anymore shouting and running around. They already know that the right thing to do is to calmly look for safer grounds. When indoors, one can take shelter under a table or beside a couch where there is lesser chance of getting hit by falling debris. When outside, make sure there is no post or wall or anything could fall to your direction. This is a positive sign. Cebu is now improving and getting more prepared for earthquake,” Santillana explained.

Councilor Dave Tumulak credited the massive information dissemination, stress debriefing and earthquake preparedness lectures to have contributed to this empowerment among Cebuanos in terms of dealing with disasters.

“The media is the government’s biggest ally in terms of information dissemination regarding earthquake preparedness. We should also acknowledge the joint efforts of the public and private sectors over the recently conducted stress debriefing and earthquake preparedness lectures that we did immediately the week after the strong earthquake in October,” Tumulak told The Freeman.

In cooperation with the Cebu City Division of the Department of Education (DepEd), the city government conducted the week-long post-quake activity from October 21 to 25 requiring all public elementary and high school teachers to attend and re-echo the lecture to students during yesterday’s resumption of classes.

As recorded by Phivolcs, Metro Cebu felt one of the strongest aftershocks in weeks when a magnitude 5.2 rocked Bohol at nearly 10 p.m. on November 1. The aftershock left an intensity scale of 5 felt in both Talibon town in Bohol and Mandaue City, Cebu.

Intensity 4 was felt in Tagbilaran city and San Isidro in Bohol as well and intensity 3 and 1 in Dumaguete city and Hibok-hibok, respectively.

With this, people inside Carreta Cemetery and Queen City Gardens sought safer grounds with PNP and CITOM personnel guiding them.

CITOM operations head Joy Tumulak said enforcers noted people going out from these cemeteries but stressed that they were no longer panicking.

He added that people are more aware considering Cebu felt the strong quake but did not incur total devastation, enough for everyone to stay on the lookout and be more conscious on the right thing to do especially during disasters like earthquake.

Further, Phivolcs has created its earthquake intensity scale from one to ten based on how destructive the tremor is.

Intensity 1 is scarcely perceptible, 2 slightly felt, 3 weak, 4 moderately strong, 5 strong, 6 very strong, 7 destructive, 8 very destructive, 9 devastating and 10 completely devastating.  (FREEMAN)