With many are still missing, the death toll in Thursday morning’s massive landslide in Naga City is expected to rise. While we brace for the worst, we still hope for a miracle that many of those trapped in their houses will come out alive.
The disaster struck like a thief in the night. Like an earthquake, there were no signs of an impending landslide. The only obvious warning was the heavy rains the night before that may have softened the earth.
Was there any warning before from authorities on the danger of living at the foot of the mountains of Barangays Tinaan and Naalad? Or were residents in those areas already warned about such danger but had to wait for a relocation site?
Had a warning been issued by disaster authorities before, there would have been a relocation conducted for those residents. Had those residents been relocated, there would have been no massive destruction of property and loss of lives when the landslide struck.
We can safely conclude that the fact that there were people living in those areas when the disaster struck, it seems no one from the authorities felt the urge to call for their immediate relocation. This given the fact that the area is near a quarrying zone.
Now, authorities have started to play the blame game with Naga City Mayor Kristine Vanessa Chiong criticizing the Mines and Geosciences Bureau for clearing a quarrying firm of any liability for the cracks found in Barangay Tinaan following the bureau’s assessment of the area.
Yes the local government is also partly to blame for only relying on the MGB assessment and for its failure to immediately implement measures on the complaints weeks ago from the residents about the cracks found near the quarrying area.
In the first place, the area should have been off limits to the residents. Whether it was safe or not, authorities should have barred human settlement in the area because it is near a quarrying zone. Now, the lack of judgment resulted in the loss of dozens of innocent lives.