LINGAYEN, Pangasinan?Angry mayors Monday called for the decommissioning of the San Roque Dam, fearing its location near a fault line raised the possibility that it could collapse during an earthquake and wipe out Pangasinan province.

?San Roque Dam is near a fault line in Nueva Vizcaya. What will be the scenario when it breaks? In Urdaneta, water will be 10 stories high. In Lingayen and Dagupan, it will be three stories high,? said Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. of Urdaneta City.

?Pangasinan will be wiped out from the map,? Perez said.

?It?s now a choice between power generation and the lives of more than two million Pangasinenses,? he told the meeting of mayors and provincial officials with national government agencies.

?Let us move as one to decommission the dam,? Perez said.

At the very least, San Roque?s power-generating capability should be shut down, the mayors said at the meeting called in the wake of the devastating flooding on Oct. 8-10 triggered by Tropical Storm ?Pepeng? and worsened by the release of water from the dam.

Alexander Palada, flood operations manager of National Power Corp. (Napocor) who authorized the release, has asked to go on vacation leave.

?I?d just like to be able to recover from the stress that I?ve been getting in the past days,? Palada told the Inquirer.

Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes said at a news briefing that Palada would be temporarily replaced by Virgilio Garcia, principal hydrologist of Napocor, which owns the dam operated by San Roque Power Corp. of Marubeni and Kansai Electric.

At least 57 people were killed and thousands were made homeless in Pangasinan as the dam opened its six spillways at the height of Pepeng?s onslaught, spewing water at the rate of 5,072 cubic meters per second that breached dikes and inundated 38 towns.

By first closing down the dam?s 400-megawatt power component, its reservoir will no longer have to be filled to its maximum level,? Perez explained.

?It?s the power component that needs a higher water elevation to enable them to have enough pressure to drive the power plants? turbines,? he said.

The dam?s maximum elevation is 290 meters above sea level (masl). The dam started releasing water on Oct. 7 when its level was 286.5 masl, officials said.

Why take the risk?

Gov. Amado Espino Jr. said the dam must have a water elevation of at least 270 masl to be able to generate electricity.

?Let?s just use it for irrigation purposes. That way, it won?t need a high water elevation. Why should we take the risk?? Perez said.

He said he had heard stories from local workers that there was supposedly no strict supervision during the dam?s construction.

Espino said the power that may be lost from San Roque could be replaced by the coal-fired power plant in nearby Sual town.

?What the mayors are saying is reasonable. First, we don?t know who is in charge up there,? Espino said. ?That?s why I told them to forget that the dam is there as a flood control facility.?

Vice Gov. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas said that the people in eastern Pangasinan had opposed the project but relented after they were told that its irrigation facility would benefit farmers.

Where?s irrigation component?

?Unfortunately, six years after its operation in 2003, the irrigation component is not still there,? Agabas said.

Espino said he was not blaming any agency for the flooding. ?But we have been looking for the person who is responsible for releasing such dangerously large volume of excess water in one sudden bunch that caused massive devastation,? he said.

Instead of mitigating flooding, the governor said the dam worsened it.

Secretary Reyes said he had initially asked Napocor to conduct an inquiry into the opening of the dam?s spillways, but decided to reconstitute the panel that will look into ?lapses, errors of omission or commission, errors of judgment, or criminal culpability even.?

?There?s this concern that you cannot have the office investigate itself,? he said.

Reyes said the panel would be composed of an academic, an expert on dam operations and a representative from Napocor, San Roque Power Corp., local governments, National Disaster Coordinating Council and National Irrigation Administration. With a report from Amy R. Remo in Manila