Move out or stay at your own risk.
This was the warning given by the Quezon City government to property owners living right on top of the West Valley Fault.
According to geologists who examined a portion of the fault line which runs through the city, the West Valley Fault has moved at least three times over the past centuries.
Their finding bolstered previous warnings made by national and local officials that the 7.2-kilometer-long fault line was an uninhabitable area because it remains active.
“The fault line is unlivable. The safety of our residents, particularly those living atop the fault line, is non-negotiable,” Elmo San Diego, Quezon City public order and safety chief, said.
Earlier, geologists from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs)—in coordination with the city government—dug two trenches 50 meters wide and five meters deep at a 50-hectare vacant lot owned by Banco Filipino in Barangay Bagong Silangan.
The area, along with Barangay Payatas, had been identified in the Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study(MMEIRS) as highly prone to earthquakes, San Diego said.
According to him, the geologists found evidence of ground displacement when they examined the exposed trench walls.
“[These] also indicate that at least two to three earthquake events have taken place in the past hundreds of years,” he said in a phone interview.
San Diego noted, however, that since some houses and buildings had already been built on parts of the West Valley Fault, the city government would send advisories to their owners.
“We will do that once we complete our comprehensive hazard map for floods, earthquakes, fires, etc. within the month,” he said.
At the same time, he reminded the owners of schools and buildings situated near the fault line to retrofit the structures to make these more stable in case of an earthquake.
The MMEIRS earlier reported that a magnitude 7.2 earthquake might originate from the West Valley Fault, prompting the Quezon City government to designate five meters on both sides of the fault line as a buffer zone which should be free of any structure.
The West Valley Fault runs through the cities of Parañaque, Makati, Taguig, Marikina, San Mateo town in Rizal province and Quezon City.