By Manly U. Ugalde
Correspondent
LEGAZPI CITY—Government efforts to recover the remaining unaccounted-for casualties in the mudslide triggered by rains brought by supertyphoon Reming last week are moving slowly because many of the rescuers are themselves victims.
Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzales on Sunday confirmed a body count of 267—some 150 of them from Legaspi City alone—although estimates of the death toll have risen to 700 in some quarters. The Office of Civil Defense estimated not less than 600 had died.
Governor Gonzales and Legazpi Mayor Noel Rosal expected the death toll to rise as many are still reported missing and feared dead.
A member of the rescue team, Raul Abiera, of barangay Padang in Legazpi City where more than 145 bodies buried by lahar flows from Mount Mayon were recovered, said more than 20 residents remain unaccounted for.
Abiera said rescuers go to the site only when media people, especially TV crews, are in the site, and leave the site whenever the media teams are no longer around. As most of the rescuers are themselves typhoon victims, they attend to their own personal problems whenever the media teams are out of sight.
Most of the victims of mudflows were residents from three barangays— Lilicao, Culiat and Binitayag—in nearby Daraga town
“Thank God, it was daytime when typhoon Reming hit Albay or else thousand of casualties could be expected,” said Mayor Rosal. Rosal said barangays 11 and 12 in Albay’s 3rd district, four kilometers from the city poblacion, were submerged by floodwaters by 10 feet, the first time it happened.
Reming also isolated Albay’s First District as the ongoing construction of Padang bridge was washed out along with Tubgon bridge in the alternate Sabluyon road—connecting the cities of Ligao and Tabaco.
DPWH assistant regional director Oscar Cristobal said it would take time to restore transportation to the first district because of the heavy damage to roads and bridges,
Mayor Rosal initially ordered the burial of more than a dozen casualties in a mass grave because their unidentified bodies, lined up outside a funeral parlor in Legazpi City, had begun to stink.
Residents blamed Legazpi City Hall’s weather consultant, retired weatherman Antonio Areste, for giving an inaccurate prediction about Reming through a radio station that fateful day.
As of Sunday, only 70 percent of commercial establishments in Albay and Legazpi City are open for business and only few passenger jeepneys operate because of a shortness in fuel, with many gas stations knocked down by the typhoon.
Authorities also estimated that 80 percent of electric posts of Napocor in the Albay electric cooperative were knocked down.
Meanwhile, after a disaster comes the traditional finger-pointing.
The chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations on Sunday blamed the ineptness of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) for the mudslide disaster in Albay that left hundreds dead.
Lakas Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay said Phivolcs failed to warn areas around Mayon of an impending lahar flow, despite the typhoon warnings issued by the weather bureau.
Had Phivolcs issued a warning, local government units would have forcibly evacuated residents of areas at risk from lahar. “Phivolcs has a lot of explaining to do,” Salceda said in a statement.
He said it was clear that the areas hit by Mayon lahar were beyond the extended eight-kilometer permanent danger zone, which would have warranted an Alert Level 4 by Phivolcs, the highest issued during Mayon’s eruption.
“It was a lethal combination—super typhoon with 466 mm rainfall plus 265-kilometer-per-hour gustiness cum Mayon with several eruptions,” Salceda said.
Salceda said Albay’s 15 towns and three cities were in chest-deep flooding until Sunday due to the 466 millimeter rainfall and 265/kph gustiness brought by Typhoon Reming. The casualties were concentrated in the towns of Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga and Sto. Domingo, which are situated at Mayon’s southeast quadrant.
Salceda said residents in these towns were recently evacuated due to volcanic eruptions, and local authorities had reported the presence of lahar within their vicinities.
He urged President Arroyo to consider the creation of a Mt. Mayon Commission through executive fiat to formulate long term solutions to what he called the “evolving terrain orientation” in the area brought about by volcanic eruptions and super typhoons.
The commission would be patterned after the Mt. Pinatubo Commission, created by the national government to address problems arising from Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991 and the subsequent onslaught of lahar.
Salceda, who also serves as the President’s chief economic adviser, said the Mayon Commission would be tasked to come up with long-term strategies for areas surrounding Mayon volcano.
He said tragic results of Pinatubo’s eruption, wherein towns and enclaves within its fringes were erased, and which completely changed the landscape in Central Luzon, could be replicated in the areas around Mayon volcano, hence his proposed commission.
Salceda warned that the evolving terrain orientation from Mayon’s eruptions coupled with super typhoons is creeping towards highly urbanized areas.
He said that just like what happened in several areas in Pampanga and Tarlac in the months following Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption, huge barangays in the towns around Mayon volcano are now being threatened with extinction.
He cited several barangays and towns in his province—Daraga, Camalig and Guinobatan towns—which were ravaged by lahar flows triggered by Reming.
Salceda said the evolving terrain in the Albay would require the building of elevated road networks and other infrastructure. Besides this, the government should also attend to the displaced families and provide for their source of livelihood.
Salceda said damage from Reming was at least twice more extensive than Milenyo, especially to power lines which were only rehabilitated in October.
In a related development, an opposition stalwart in the House of Representatives appealed to the House leadership to shelve temporarily discussions on the proposed Charter amendments, and focus instead of passing a supplemental budget for relief and rehabilitation of typhoon-ravaged areas in Bicol.
Independent Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque City said that Charter changes debates should take the back seat in favor of a supplemental budget that would provide much-needed funds to provinces affected by super typhoon Reming.
“I urge the House leaderhsip to postpone by at least a week deliberations on Chacha in deference to the calamity especially in the Bicol area,” Golez said.
“It would be the height of insensitivity and callousness to discuss Chacha while hundreds of thousands have been dislocated and mourn their dead, or looking for missing loved ones amidst the debris and mudflows.”
(With J. Cadacio)
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