School buildings also unsafe for Escalante evacuees, says MGB

Families who abandoned their houses in areas considered “high risk” to landslides in Escalante City may not find it any safer to stay in public school buildings there.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has found many cracks in the walls of the Malasibog Elementary School building, which is serving as temporary shelter to most of the 58 families who left their homes in the villages of Malasibog and Paitan last week.

MGB Regional Director Leo Van Juguan said he had asked Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. in a letter, that the school buildings posed risks not only to the evacuees but also to teachers and students, and should therefore be closed.

On January 16, 53 families from Sitio (sub-village) Baloc in Malasibog and five families from Paitan evacuated from their neighborhoods after land fissures triggered landslides in Mt. Solitario on December 27 last year and on January 10 this year.

A field assessment by an MGB team two days before showed that the buildings being used as shelter by the evacuees were not safe, pointing at the cracks in the walls, Juguan said.

The official also cited the need to transfer all houses on the slopes and at the foot of Solitario, possibly to the barangay centers of Malasibog and Paitan.

The 308-meter mountain, which is more than 2 kilometers long, is highly susceptible to landslides primarily due to the “overloading” of slope materials, abundance of ground and rain water, and sloping terrain, the MGB said.

An overloading occurs when rocks and soil in the underlying areas are saturated with rainwater and water from gullies, creeks and springs, it added.

Juguan recommended putting up signs declaring the area as a danger zone.