THOUSANDS of residents of coastal villages in at least 19 provinces returned to their homes yesterday, hours after authorities declared that threats of tsunami swallowing their communities were over.
The residents were moved out of their homes following the 8.9-magnitude quake that devastated the northeastern part of Japan and which generated a series of tsunami that reached California in the United States.
Tsunami Alert Level 2 was raised in provinces in the northeastern side of the country facing the Pacific Ocean.
In five provinces in Bicol, at least 34,300 families were allowed to return home after authorities declared the tsunami threat over.
Green light
Cedric Daep, head of the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office, said the green light for residents to return home was given to local disaster councils past midnight on Saturday.
Daep quoted local officials as saying one-meter high waves generated by the Japan quake were seen off the waters of Cagraray Island in Bacacay, Albay.
The Office of Civil Defense in Bicol, however, said the height of the waves didn’t exceed a meter.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda credited media, village officials, local chief executives, soldiers and policemen with the orderly and prompt evacuation of residents.
“Thank God,” he said.
Sound from the sea
In coastal villages in Ilocos Norte, Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela and Aurora, thousands also started returning home early yesterday.
They spent Friday night in government buildings and public gymnasiums carrying clothes and food. Others sought refuge in hills and other elevated areas.
In Ilocos Norte and Isabela, unusual sound coming from the sea and changes in the height of waves fed off fears of people living along the coastlines as they fled their homes.
The moment she heard the sea roar on Friday, Rosalia de la Cruz, a resident of Barangay Caaoacan in Laoag City, started packing clothes and biscuits for her three grandchildren and asked her son to drive them to the city hall.
It was almost 7 p.m. when De la Cruz, whose house was a few meters from the coast of Caaoacan, saw unusual wave movements.
“I thought it was the tsunami starting to roll. The sea started to become turbulent. I immediately packed and gathered my grandchildren,” she said.
De la Cruz was among the more than 200 residents in the city’s coastal villages of Caaoacan and Gabu who trooped to city hall to move out of harm’s way.
Facing the Pacific
Policemen were sent to villages near the city’s coast where residents were asked to move inland.
Mayor Michael Fariñas ordered the conversion of the air-conditioned city auditorium as temporary shelter and advised families to spend the night there.
The alert was lifted before midnight Saturday but evacuees waited until the morning to return home.
Cynthia Iglesia, chief of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration in Ilocos Norte, said only the northernmost town of Pagudpud was vulnerable to tsunami because it faces the Pacific Ocean.
She said most coastal villages in Ilocos Norte face the South China Sea in the western coastline of Luzon.
In Pagudpud, Mayor Matilde Sales ordered the relocation of at least 2,000 families living near the shorelines of Pansian, Pasaleng, Balaoi and Saud. In Pasuquin town, more than 1,000 families from the coastal village of Caruan sought shelter in evacuation centers.
Religious people
In Batanes, the deeply religious Ivatans resorted to prayers on Friday. Batanes was reported to be the first province in the Philippines to be hit by tsunami.
Life in the province, however, was normal despite the tsunami alert. At least 800 people gathered at Batanes State College for a graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon but local officials and the commencement speaker asked them to be prepared and pray for safety.
In Isabela, former Palanan Mayor Natividad Bernardo said residents heard the sea rumbling on Friday but it was not too loud to induce panic among residents of the coastal town.
Gov. Faustino Dy III said he received reports that villagers living near the sea in Palanan heard the loud gushing of water at 6 p.m.
Dy said the 1,058 families who fled the coastal towns of Palanan, Maconacon, Divilacan and Dinapigue returned home starting 10 p.m. Friday. Some, however, waited for sunlight before returning to their homes.
Evacuation in darkness
Bernardo said the evacuation was difficult as they had to trek to the hills in darkness. Most of the residents, she said, feared for their lives.
“Thanks to God, we were spared and are now safe,” she said.
“We endured mosquito bites and the darkness. Many were hungry because they failed to cook and bring food. We were cramped inside tents pitched in high grounds in the town,” Bernardo said.
In Cagayan, Senior Supt. Mao Aplasca, provincial police director, said more than 4,000 families in the northern coastlines of the province returned to their homes before midnight Friday when the tsunami alert was lifted.
In Aurora, Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo said she lifted the tsunami alert level in her province, which faces the Pacific Ocean, at 11:30 p.m. Friday.
At least 2,000 residents of coastal villages in the Aurora capital of Baler moved to Ermita Hill, the highest spot in the area and the same area where their ancestors ran for safety during a 1735 tsunami that wiped out the town, she said.
Picnic in Aurora
Another group of more than 2,000 residents spent the night at the provincial sports complex.
“I did not want them to leave yet. I urged them to stay on just to make sure they’re safe. Anyway, they brought along provisions for the night. It seemed we had a picnic,” Castillo told the Inquirer by telephone.
She said residents started returning home by 5 a.m. Saturday.
Reports from the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said 917 families were evacuated in Baler, Dingalan, Dipaculao, Dinalungan and San Luis towns on Friday afternoon when the tsunami alert was raised.
In Sultan Kudarat, images of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan beamed by live TV brought back memories of a powerful quake and tsunami in 1976 that destroyed communities around the Moro Gulf.
1976 survivor
Dolores Obales, 70, recalled the 1976 quake as she watched the Japan tragedy on TV.
The 1976 quake registered a magnitude of 7.6 and triggered a tsunami that swallowed the cities of Pagadian, Cotabato and seaside areas in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao and the Zamboanga peninsula. An estimated 5,000 people were killed.
“I can still feel it, the fear I felt then came back,” said Obales. She said one is helpless in tsunami. All one can do is pray, she added.
Obales recalled seeing in 1976 under a bright moon how shanties and boats were carried by water from the tsunami. “I called on all the saints,” she said.
Obales also recalled seeing logs dumped on the shore by the waves. The first thing she heard then, she said, was a rumbling sound followed minutes after by water rushing toward her and the shouts of her neighbors: “Tidal wave, run, run!”
“So when I saw the tsunami (in Japan) on TV and the report that it might reach the Philippines, I was so scared that my blood pressure shot up,” she said.
In Digos City, at least 20,000 residents returned home on Saturday.
The tsunami alert was lifted past 11 p.m. on Friday but coastal villagers decided to return home only Saturday morning. Mar Arguelles, Inquirer Southern Luzon; Cristina Arzadon, Villamor Visaya Jr. and Juliet Cataluña, Inquirer Northern Luzon; Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon; Edwin Fernandez, Orlando Dinoy and Eldie Aguirre, Inquirer Mindanao; Marlon Ramos in Manila; and Inquirer wires