Marikina to DPWH: Check collapsing riverbank walls

CHILDREN view the abandoned riverside neighborhood in Barangay Nangka, Marikina City, where a riprap collapsed in the wee hours of Wednesday. The incident has prompted Mayor Marcelino Teodoro to call on the DPWH to look at the quality of its projects. Richard A. Reyes

For the third time this month, a riverbank wall or riprap collapsed amid continuous rains in Marikina City, endangering homes and prompting the local government to call the attention of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) about the quality of its projects.

Around 2:50 a.m. on Wednesday, a portion of the wall bordering Marikina River in Barangay Nangka gave way and sent two homes crashing down the slope.

No one was reported injured as at least eight families—or 42 individuals—were convinced by local rescue workers to evacuate the neighborhood before the protective wall collapsed, according to Mayor Marcelino Teodoro.

The two homes on Mirasol Street were destroyed while six other nearby houses, now considered at risk, were being monitored, Teodoro said in an interview.

The mayor noted that it was the third time this month that a portion of the riprap built by the DPWH in the city collapsed.

On Monday, as the city marked the seventh anniversary of Typhoon “Ondoy” that pummeled Marikina and much of Metro Manila in 2009, a portion of the wall in Bayabas also gave way, displacing at least 10 families.

Revisit quality of work

Two weeks earlier, another wall still under construction in Marikina Heights also suffered damage, Teodoro said.

“I suggest that they revisit the engineering design and quality of their work. These are lives and security of people we are talking about here,” Teodoro said as he called on the DPWH to immediately start repair works.

Teodoro said there had been similar incidents in Marikina during the previous administration.

In the last meeting between the city government and the DPWH under the Duterte administration, the agency said it would conduct a structural analysis of the existing ripraps in the city, he added.

Teodoro said the wall that collapsed in Nangka on Wednesday should be around eight years old and runs along the boundary of Marikina and San Mateo, Rizal.

He noted that the structure proved unsound even though there was no flooding in the area that morning.