Tsunami scare thousands flee from their houses

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Thousands of residents living in the coastal towns of Antique and Capiz provinces, as well as in northern Iloilo province have fled their homes due to reports of an impending tsunami circulated before midnight of Sunday.

The text messages, which turned out later to be a hoax, warned residents to immediately evacuate as a tsunami will occur at around 2 a.m. of Monday.

Residents of island villages in Capiz, particularly in the towns of Pilar, President Roxas, Panay and Pontevedra, readily boarded their boats and headed off the coast.

A large number of people living in northern Iloilo and Antique also sought refuge in the nearest mountains in a bid to shield themselves from the reported tsunami. It was gathered that most people who fled their homes were residents in Yolanda-ravaged areas.

Police authorities in some parts of Antique and Iloilo have made the rounds and announced that the tsunami warning was just a hoax, but this did not appease the people from leaving their homes.

Clarifications made by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) over the web and in local radios did not also placate the panicking populace. Worse, when the supposed tsunami did not occur at 2 a.m. yesterday, text messages began circulating that people should be warned that it might occur anytime until December 5.

“After typhoon Yolanda, we’re now more cautious. Anything could happen. We don’t want to be sorry,” said Rose, a resident of Panay in Capiz.

Looting was also reported in Roxas City and Estancia town in Iloilo after residents there hastily abandoned their houses.

Although, most people returned home, a good number just packed some belongings and again left their houses out of fear that the tsunami will strike their place.

Ramil Atando of Phivolcs in Roxas City clarified that the agency did not issue any tsunami alert. A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, generally an ocean or a large lake.

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.

“Tsunami could occur when there is an earthquake with the ocean as its epicenter and has an at least 6.5 magnitude,” Atando said. As it is, reports pointed that a tsunami cannot be precisely predicted, even if the magnitude and location of an earthquake is known.

Atando said that even if the Negros trench would trigger a tsunami, first to be hit is southern Negros Occidental, then southern Guimaras, then Aniniy town in Antique and then the whole of southern Iloilo.  (FREEMAN)