Disaster response on test anew

DUJIANGYAN — The first leg of our trip here was a visit to this town that suffered the worst from the magnitude eight earthquake that shook China on May 12, 2008. It was around 12:28 p.m. on that fateful day when the entire province of Sichuan shook and the ground literally opened.

It left about 60,000 people dead all over Sichuan and over 300,000 people hurt or injured. Dujiangyan, which was near the epicenter, recorded a total of 3,091 deaths and scores of people injured. Almost all houses, villages and infrastructure facilities were totally destroyed or damaged by the deadly earthquake.

But now, this story of devastation of Sichuan has become an international testament of how the Chinese people could immediately recover and rise above their tragedy through sheer national unity. In fact, a monument was erected in the middle of the Dujiangyan to immortalize the triumph over tragedy by the Chinese people.

The monument depicts the Chinese people hand in hand assisting one another in the recovery of survivors from the ruins of crumbled structures. Police, military, civic and volunteer workers from all over China joined forces in the rescue operations. The monument stands in front of the Planning Exhibition Pavilion to showcase their national spirit and state of readiness during disasters. The area has even become a tourist attraction here.

The earthquake destruction was simply too much that it will take a lot of time before the lives of the survivors could return to normal. And this enormous task was placed upon the shoulders of Sun Lingxia, director of the Reconstruction and Management Office of Sichuan province.

Sun is the female counterpart here of former Senator Panfilo Lacson who is now the presidential assistant for disaster rehabilitation and recovery (PARR). But unlike the post of Lacson as PARR secretary, Sun holds a permanent office in the local bureaucracy of Sichuan Province. She is, in fact, a ranking member of the local Communist Party of China (CPC).

She greeted us at the steps of the Pavilion, the visit of which was the first activity for the 15-man delegation of Philippine media participating in this first Southwest China Economic and Cultural Familiarization Tour organized by the Chinese Embassy in Manila. She let us be taken first to a guided tour of the two-storey building where hung framed photos of the rescue and relief operations during the first few days and months after the Sichuan earthquake.

We saw a very familiar face in one of the photos on the wall: former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She was among the few world leaders who came to Dujiangyan and paid her respects to the earthquake victims on August 17, 2008, barely three months after the earthquake. Mrs. Arroyo went to the disaster site here during one of her official visits to China.

In the briefing that followed our guided tour, Sun told us she herself is one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the deadly earthquake. She lost her house but was fortunate enough that none from her family was killed. That is why, she said, she has been passionate in taking up the challenge to help her countrymen rebuild their homes and restore their livelihood destroyed by the earthquake.

Recalling the sad memories of the tragic quake, Sun described how nearly the whole city was destroyed but disaster response was very quick to come to aid the survivors.

“After three days, people immediately got clean water and basic elements for life support came from the government,” Sun said.

With the help of the Central Government, Sun said, the state council of Chengdu relocated temporarily the affected families to plank houses with plank hospitals in each of the evacuation sites. In three months, she cited, the relief phase was completed. And within the next three years, she claimed, the resettlement to new permanent houses was done.

Six years after the earthquake devastation, Sun told us they had already finished the reconstruction phase. Sun continues to direct the local and national efforts to rebuild more disaster-resilient communities and enable the people to keep up with the fast steps of industrial development of the entire province of Sichuan.

As we walked through the photo exhibits of how Chengdu rose from the rubble, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official took me aside to one particular photo showing rows of large, blue tents with Chinese markings on top that were put up as temporary shelters for those evacuated from the ruins. Then he remarked: “China gave 6,000 pieces of such tents for the ‘Yolanda’ victims in Tacloban City.”

 He was referring to the super typhoon “Yolanda” that wrought destruction in Visayas in November last year. Tacloban City is the capital of Leyte that was the hardest hit province by the killer typhoon. The bulk of about 6,000 people killed by the tsunami-like devastation of Yolanda were those in Leyte. Many who perished remain missing and unaccounted for, if not identified yet up to now.

Aside from tents, the same Chinese Foreign Ministry official pointed to another photo showing rows of plank houses put up at the Dujiangyan evacuation and told me China also donated about 1,000 pieces of similar structures.

The bulk of these donations were turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and some to the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

It is, however, too disconcerting to hear reports that many Yolanda disaster victims are still being housed in makeshift tents up to now after almost a year.        

And to think we just had typhoon “Mario” unleashing last week the worst flooding for this year in Metro Manila. By the way, Mario was the 13th typhoon to visit the Philippines and left ten people dead in its wake.

Aside from an average of 20 typhoons visiting each year, the Philippines lies in the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire” where earthquakes and volcanic activities are constant threats to lives and properties. A magnitude 7.2 earthquake in central Bohol province last year killed 200 people and destroyed many houses and old church structures.

Last Saturday, we learned that a magnitude five earthquake occurred in southern Philippines. Thank God, there was no casualty reported even as many as 70 houses were destroyed.

Officials in the province of Albay are reportedly still bracing for a worst-case scenario despite the lull in abnormal activities of Mayon Volcano threatening to erupt since last week when we left the Philippines.

All these natural calamities are taking place one after the other while President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III brings along half his Cabinet officials in his longest yet official travel abroad. Obviously, President Aquino is so confident his administration officials left behind in the Philippines can handle the developing situation. The Chief Executive did not see any need to cut short his trip to Europe and even proceeded to the US for his homecoming visit of sorts to Boston, Massachusetts where the Aquino family lived for three years.

The Aquino Cabinet officials in charge of disaster response have hopefully learned from their tragic lapses in the Yolanda experience. Let us pray their disaster response skills, even if they supposedly made better adjustments, will never get to be tested in any horrific disaster ever again.