• CHERYL G. CRUZ
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian has directed the agency’s Disaster Response Management Group (DRMG) to work double time in augmenting the stockpiles of family food packs (FFPs) in Western and Central Visayas.
This as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned Jan. 11 of “an increased chance for sudden explosive eruptions to occur and endanger communities at risk with life-threatening volcanic hazards.”
As per the latest Phivolcs advisory, there is increased ground deformation at Kanlaon Volcano, with pronounced inflation or swelling of the middle to upper portion of the eastern edifice since Jan. 10, and significant drop in SO2 emission, among others.
“The overall parameters may indicate that the shallow magma conduit of the volcano is undergoing pressurization that may lead to an eruption broadly similar to the Dec. 9 event,” the Phivolcs said.
Gatchalian, meanwhile, said he tasked the DRMG-National Resource and Logistics Management Bureau (NRLMB) to preposition 100,000 boxes of FFPs in the whole of Negros Island amid another possible eruption of Mt. Kanlaon.
“We will massively send FFP stockpiles to Negros Oriental (Region 7) and Negros Occidental (Region 6) starting Jan. 12. We will fill our provincial warehouses on the island to the brim,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
He tasked the DRMG-NRLMB to make sure that by today, Jan. 13, some 40,000 boxes of food packs would have been delivered to Negros Occidental, and another 40,000 FFPs to Negros Oriental, on top of the current stockpiles.
DSWD Region 6 director Arwin Razo said the agency’s rented warehouse in Bacolod City can accommodate up to 50,000 boxes of food packs.
“I have instructed my team to check on other available warehouses of local government units na pwede pang magamit,” Razo reported to Gatchalian.
Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno, administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), on the other hand, appealed to the local governments of Bago and La Castellana in Negros Occidental to urgently reconsider their decision of allowing evacuees to return home.
With the heightened volcanic activity at Kanlaon, “we must take anticipatory actions to prepare for the worst-case scenario of a more violent eruption. Achieving zero casualties is our utmost priority,” Nepomuceno said in a statement Jan. 12. “We are constrained to sound the alarm and urge local officials to reassess this decision. The safety of our citizens must come first.”
He reiterated the necessity of ensuring the safety of residents, who have returned home. “We are strongly concerned about the potential for pyroclastic density currents traveling at speeds of 30 to 600 kilometers per hour; no resident in the danger zone can escape this.” | CGC
