Relocation of lahar-affected Sorsogon residents ordered

LEGAZPI CITY – The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in urgent meetings on Friday in Sorsogon has officially ordered the relocation of all the residents in Barangay Cogon, one of the three Irosin town villages threatened to be totally wiped out should heavy downpour continue and loosen deposited lahar and boulders at the slope of Mt. Bulusan in Sorsogon, officials confirmed yesterday.

Raffy Alejandro, Bicol director of the Office of Civil Defense, said that at least 181 families, or 908 persons, will be relocated from Cogon as soon as the resettlement site is finished.

Alejandro said the National Housing Authority is now working on the site identification and development of the relocation area while the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has already put on standby the building of at least 200 core shelter housing units.

“But since the process of establishing the relocation area takes a few months, emergency dredging will continue in the silted channels and gullies to avert possible loss of lives as heavy rains gradually redirects the volcanic materials toward the residential areas,” Alejandro told The STAR.

He said that the total relocation of Cogon residents was unanimously agreed upon by all the concerned disaster control agencies and the local officials of Irosin and Sorsogon province as a long-term solution to the constant lahar threat these residents are facing.

Alejandro said that the decision was an offshoot of the recommendation made by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) that the million metric tons of lahar and other volcanic materials deposited at the upper slopes of Mt. Bulusan would cascade down anytime should heavy rains fall in the area.

He said that Cogon is the most threatened of the four barangays in Irosin because it is situated nearest to the biggest lahar channel at the foot of Bulusan volcano. The other villages already buried under mud and boulders are Monbon, Patag and Mapaso. 

Further, Bella Tubianosa, Phivolcs resident volcanologist at the Cabid-An monitoring station in Sorsogon City, said that Bulusan has “endless” supply of lahar that might cascade down the villages in case of heavy rains.

“I cannot give an estimate of the volume of deposited lahar along Bulusan volcano. But I am sure that the supply of lahar is endless,” Tubianosa told The STAR.

Alejandro and Tubianosa agreed that total relocation of the Cogon residents is the most effective long-term solution to the problem even as it could also be the cheapest.

“When the residents are already relocated, there is no need to dredge the heavily silted gullies and there is no more need for the putting up of multi-million peso worth of a mega-dike as earlier planned,” Alejandro said.

At least 1,600 persons were driven into the evacuation centers when lahar and boulders half-buried houses in the four barangays since occasional heavy rains took place over Mt. Bulusan five days ago.