MMDA Acting Chairperson Don Artes presents the building plan for the agency’s Disaster Preparedness Training Center during a press briefing at the Metro Manila Development Authority headquarters in Makati City on Thursday, February 16, 2023. | Photo from MMDA
MANILA, Philippines — The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is planning to open its Disaster Preparedness Training Center before the end of the year.
The MMDA said the center will be built on a vacant piece of land at the Carmona Sanitary Landfill in Cavite City.
It will be big and have four training hubs: a Rappelling Tower, a Confined Space Structure, a Wrecked Building with Structure Rubble Pile, and a Pancake Collapsed Structure.
The training will help make Metro Manila safer. It will teach people how to respond in an emergency, and how to stay safe “that outlines the effective management of emergency situations and all matters related that may occur in the face of a crisis.”
According to its statement, the Disaster Preparedness Training Center “will initially cater to 17 Metro Manila Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Offices (MDRRMOs)” and eventually “accommodate other government agencies, barangay auxiliaries, fire volunteer groups in the Metropolis, and rescuers from other provinces.”
“A medical clearance is required for an interested rescuer before he/she can participate to ensure that he or she is physically fit to undergo the training,” the MMDA also said.
MMDA Acting chairman Don Artes said they thought of making a training center after the earthquake in Abra in 2022.
Rescuers from all around the country came to help, but they saw that the crews needed more training and help. So they decided to make the training center to help volunteers do a better job.
READ: NDRRMC: 436 aftershocks logged after 6.4-magnitude Abra quake
“The agency saw the need to build a center that will focus on disaster response to empower rescuers and provide those affected by disasters with immediate assistance,” he said.
Artes said the government built the Disaster Preparedness Training Center as a way to prepare in case a very big earthquake (7.2 on the Richter scale) happens in Metro Manila, like the 2004 Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study said it might.
READ: Quake-weary Abra folk spend nights outdoors
According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s MMEIRS study, a big earthquake could cause 35,000 people to die, 120,000 people to get hurt, and up to two and a half trillion pesos in economic losses.
To help, the MMDA will give a two-week training for the government to create more rescuers that can help when an earthquake happens. They will learn how to use life locators and vibrascopes, among other tools.
Besides the Disaster Preparedness Training Center, the MMDA wants to buy modern rescue equipment and keep it at four places in Metro Manila. This is part of their Oplan Metro Yakal Plus or Metro Manila Earthquake Contingency Plan.
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