THE Lapu-Lapu City government is organizing a disaster response team that could serve the needs of its residents and tourists.
The Disaster Action Reponse Team (DART) will be composed of City Hall employees who are willing to serve beyond the call of duty and willing to undergo and complete a series of trainings on first aid, and land and sea disaster response, said Andy Berame, head of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC)
He said they found the need to form the DART because Lapu-Lapu City ‘s growing population calls for private response groups that can address emergency cases.
Currently, the team already had eight scuba divers who will be trained on technical diving.
The city government has also allocated P2 million for the technical diving training and equipments.
Berame said technical diving capability is important as Lapu-Lapu is dependent on the sea.
Learning from the plane crash of the late Interior and Local Government secretary Jesse Robredo, Berame said they thought of the urgency of the DART having technical diving capabilities.
“We need it because we are surrounded by the sea. Our tourism activities involves the sea.” Berame said.
Technical diving is defined as a form of scuba diving that exceeds recreational diving in terms of depth, bottom time and type of diving.
Recreational diving is limited to 40 meters depth (130 feet). The gases used in technical diving like trimix are also different from recreational diving which is ordinary air and nitrox.
The creation of the DART has been made more urgent amid recent accidents that killed one Korean and one Japanese tourist last Sept. 21. Both tourists died while diving.
Lapu-Lapu City Police-Community Relation (PCR) deputy chief, SPO2 Rodito Viovicente said boat owners and operators and dive shop owners in the city, will undergo seminars on safety in order to avoid more accidents in the sea./Correspondents Fe Marie D. Dumaboc and Norman V. Mendoza