In Escalante, fissures prompt forced evacuation

BACOLOD CITY—The Escalante City government has moved 35 families out of a remote community in the city that has been declared a danger zone by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and where cracks had formed on the ground.

The families left their homes in Sitio Baluk in the boundary of Barangays Malasibog and Paitan, about 5 kilometers from the city proper, on Tuesday and Wedndesday after Escalante Mayor Melecio Yap ordered the evacuation.

They were temporarily housed at the Malasibog Elementary School and a chapel while the city government was looking for a permanent relocation site, said Yap.

The families had long been told to leave the area after the cracks started appearing in 2007. But they refused to do so.

Early this week, the families heeded the evacuation order. They voluntarily packed their belongings and left their homes, said Liane Garcia, provincial social welfare officer.

Garcia said the families had also expressed concern for their safety when they noticed that the number of cracks had been growing and because of images of the landslide in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, that killed 37 people.

Garcia said some of the fissures had grown to a meter wide.

The community had been struck by ground movements in recent days and rains have filled the cracks with water.

In December, the Western Visayas office of MGB, a bureau under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, had urged local government units to use geohazard maps prepared by the bureau in disaster preparations, including zoning rules.

Based on an MGB report, geohazard studies done from 2006-2010 identified more than 4,000 villages in 133 towns in the region as hazard zones.

At least 564 of the villages were tagged “high risk.” High-risk areas, according to MGB, are those with active faults or those that had been struck by landslides in recent days.