Authorities to relocate 48 families in quake-hit NCotabato town

KIDAPAWAN City, Philippines - Authorities are relocating 48 families in Carmen, North Cotabato away from areas frequently jolted by aftershocks following the June 1 magnitude-5.7 earthquake that damaged close to 200 houses and vital infrastructures in the municipality.

The 48 families are residing along ridges overlooking the stretch of Sayre Highway, which connects North Cotabato to Bukidnon. These areas are prone to landslides that are feared to occur due to the continuing tectonic movements of an underground fault.

Officials of the Carmen municipal disaster risk reduction and management council said they have started transferring the affected families to temporary relief sites in Barangay Kimadzil, about 15 kilometers away from the epicenter of the June 1 earthquake.

Carmen Vice Mayor Moises Arendain said the local government already has a two-hectare land where they can permanently relocate the 48 families.

Arendain said the local goverment has started constructing core shelters for each of the displaced families.

The local office of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology an Seismology has already recorded 297 aftershocks since June 1. At least three more were recorded on Saturday and on Monday morning.

The Phivolcs said that the aftershocks are likely to continue in the next few months, until loosened earth debris has filled the underground crack straddling underneath populated areas in Carmen.

Wilma Abella, a resident of Barangay Kimadzil in Carmen, said local government employees have started demolishing the damaged houses in their village to prevent occupants from coming back.

Local education officials and parents of school children have also started constructing makeshift classrooms, which elementary pupils can use pending the repair of school buildings damaged by the earthquake.

Romelito Flores, assistant schools division of North Cotabato, told reporters that the re-opening of classes in Carmen has been deferred until the completion of the 15 makeshift classrooms.

Flores said one of their main concerns now is where to house students of the badly-damaged classrooms in the Kibutungan National High School in Barangay Kibudtungan, also in Carmen.

He said government engineers have declared all of the classrooms in the school unsafe for occupation by students.