MANILA, Philippines–The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has set up a centralized depot in Marikina City for all its emergency equipment as part of its disaster preparedness program.
Inside the rescue and disaster warehouse in Barangay (village) Tañong are the trucks, boats and other heavy equipment that the agency will need should a disaster or calamity strike Metro Manila.
“We no longer have enough space at the MMDA headquarters on Orense Street [in Makati City] so we decided to find another place for this purpose. We looked for a strategic area to make sure the deployment of resources would be a lot easier and faster,” MMDA General Manager Cora Jimenez said.
Jimenez added that the rescue personnel of the agency’s public safety division would also hold office at the warehouse.
The MMDA official said that while Marikina was prone to flooding, the area where the warehouse was located was flood-free.
The agency, however, was also studying the possibility of setting up rescue and disaster warehouses in four other key locations in Metro Manila identified as strategic areas under its “Oplan Metro Yakal,” a campaign to prepare the metropolis for strong earthquakes.
These four designated sites include the Veterans golf course in Quezon City, the Villamor golf course in Pasay City, the Wack Wack golf course in Mandaluyong City and the Intramuros golf course in Manila.
Oplan Metro Yakal is composed of the 6,000 MMDA personnel who were trained as rescue volunteers under Task Force Rainbow along with 1,000 volunteers from various barangays and fire brigade groups and civic organizations.
Under the contingency plan, all MMDA rescuers must report to their designated sectors in the event of an earthquake to prepare evacuation sites.
At the same time, Jimenez appealed to local government units in Metro Manila to conduct earthquake drills.
Earlier, MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino said the 5.7-magnitude quake that jolted parts of Luzon last week should remind Metro residents to be constantly disaster-ready.