Calamity status in Kalunasan; cleanup spares Mandaue, Lapu

TWO areas in barangay Kalunasan, Cebu City were placed under calamity status after 11 families were affected by last Tuesday afternoon’s heavy rains.

Barangay Kalunasan captain Nunilon Monares, Jr. said eight of the families were from Unit 3 at the back of Opra Elementary School while three families living in Opra Unit 5 fronting Osmeña Shrine were affected.

Some families moved out since last Tuesday. The barangay council held a special session to declare the areas under calamity status in order to facilitate the release of calamity funds.

Cebu City Hall’s Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) profiled the families as of yesterday morning.

DSWS chief Ester Concha said Unit 5 at Osmeña shrine is a critical area due to the heavy volume of water upstream.

“Wala may nangaguba pero nangaanod ang ilahang mga butang (Nothing was destroyed but the properties floated in the area),” Concha said.

The water surge overflowed from the three-meter fence and rendered the area vulnerable to landslide.

Monares said the terrace of a concrete house prevented the water from flowing downstream. “It could have killed the families,” he added.

The Cebu City government gave disaster kits such as kitchen utensils and mats.

Some of these families transferred to the barangay sports center fronting Opra Elementary School last Tuesday night.

“More than 40 people are now in the complex,” Monares said. DSWS distributed packed meals yesterday.

Though some families slowly returned to their houses, Concha said she still cautioned them to return to the sports center during bad weather since it’s near their area.

Among the affected residents was 40-year-old Marcelo Viola, who said he was inside his home when his kitchen wall collapsed due to the floodwaters.

He said some of his clothes were washed away.

DSWS and personnel of the City Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) joined the barangay officials in inspecting the landslide prone areas in Kalunasan yesterday.

Monares said the families were assured of construction materials.

In Mandaue City, officials said the city was mostly spared from the floods that hit their neighbor due to their previous mass cleanups and de-clogging of drainages.

“It’s not like before when the water will subside the next day since the drainage canals were mostly de-clogged,” Mandaue City Administrator James Abadia said, citing as an example, Hi-way Seno in barangay Tipolo.

He said the demolition of the 15 to 20 houses underneath the Butuanon bridge also helped prevent the flood.

Abadia said they fenced the area to discourage people from rebuilding their houses there.

Experts from Toyo University in Japan would arrive in Mandaue City to check into the city’s solid waste and drainage program on Sept. 16, he said.

But last Tuesday’s heavy rainfall caused a landslide that destroyed a chapel and injured one person.

In Lapu-Lapu City, Mayor Paz Radaza said only the low-lying barangay Basak was affected by the floods.

She credited their general cleanup campaign last June as having helped prevent the floods that swept through Cebu City’s streets.

“There is an ongoing parallel drainage project in Barangay Basak and it is soon to be finished, the project will drain big volume of water in the flooded area,” Radaza said. With Correspondents Jucell Marie P. Cuyos and Norman V. Mendoza