Earthquakes – many more coming in 2012? Sen. Chiz wants LGUs audited on compliance with risk disaster management compliance

By CHITO DELA TORRE
February 3, 2012

Last February 1, 2012, the Waray region’s surface soil, rocks and minerals shook, three times in a span of less than an hour.  The first shock was felt only once, briefly, for less than a second, as many observed.  The second, after about 5 minutes, lasted for about two seconds. The third, about more than 5 minutes from the second, was much longer.  The third shock caused houses and big buildings and some trees to visibly shake.  People ran to the streets.  Students and some teachers went home.  There was repeated screaming – HOO!  HOO!  HOYYY!  In the 50s, huge screams were said to be necessary, as the only way to stop the quakes.  Tales of old creeping to modern times so said that a dragon was trying to come out from beneath the earth and that people only needed to shoo it away by their shouts of Hoos.

A text message reaching me from Cebu City said of that Feb. 1 earthquake: “intensity III an linog dida, intensity IV ha Borongan”.

The small tremors were recorded as having occurred, with a magnitude of 5.2 from a depth of 61 kilometers at 12:30:54 p.m. (noon) at its epicenter, 75 kilometers or 46 miles north northwest of the town of Guiuan (which completes the south tail end of the island of Samar, in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines, or 80 km (49 miles) northeast of Tacloban highly urbanized city in Leyte island.

On the same day, less than 2 hours later, Southern Sumatra in Indonesia jolted at a magnitude of 5.6 from a movement 69.1 km beneath the earth, with stronger jolts shaking Bengkulu.

My year 2011 Sunday serial articles here on predictions and reactions to claims about the world’s coming to its end included earthquakes as among the predicted causes or signs towards an end-world scenario. In that year, there indeed had been several big earthquakes, including those that hit Japan in March.  Earthquakes were also said to continue in year 2012, particularly as signs leading to the predicted end by December 21, 2012.  Just this year, there have already been a series of quakes, in various points of our planet.  Last January 31, the jolts were at near the east coast of Honshu, Japan, at 4.8 magnitude, and at New Britain Region, Papua New Guinea, at 4.9.  On Feb. 1, other shocks were reported between 2:43 a.m. and 9:43 p.m., in many places, like Albania, Chile, Manitoba in Canada, Northern Peru (on Jan. 30, hundreds were injured from a M 6.3 quake that shook Ica in Peru), the Fiji Region, Java in Indonesia, Greater London region, Kuril Islands, Banda Sea, Liaoning in China, Southern California, Wells in Nevada, and the Easter Island Region.  For more information, you may visit http://earthquake-report.com or http://disaster-report.blogspot.com.

It had seemed that earthquakes could be “predicted”, that is, by some, may be by scientists, or, by clairvoyants.  Or ordinary citizens, denizens or netizens can make their own predictions.  But scientific predictions are much more reliable.  A few end-world predictors have been found out to be also making a good, and profitable (if you didn’t already know) use of scientific predictions, by say, simply studying the calendars and past earthquake events, or through mathematical calculations.  A fewer others, though, simply make general statements while citing certain applicable provisions in the Holy Bible.  How their predictions are handled by the end-user becomes a private and individual process.  The exception lies, however, in pieces of advice on how to prepare for earthquakes.  (And here, maybe the local government unit of Basey is correct when it sits sometime this month of February with stakeholders to plan and prepare for natural and man-caused disasters, including possible earthquakes, especially in light of the fact that Basey lies near or along a fault line that is traced to have come from Luzon and to be going down to Mindanao, and of the global fact that, like the Philippines itself, it is on the direct path of the global belt that is said to be that part of the earth where earthquakes could be only be less seldom but not infrequent.  (You may want to visit http://earthquakesummary.info/.)

Along this continuum of preparations, Senator Chiz Escudero is pressing for the audit of LGUs on disaster risk management compliance, saying that all local government units (LGUs) must be audited for compliance with disaster risk reduction and management plan as mandated by Republic Act (RA) 10211 or the Disaster Management Act of 2010.  Very clear.  There is a law to comply. RA 10211.  Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on environment and natural resources, urged the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of local government’s adherence to the disaster risk management and response, even after the department’s issuance of a policy requiring LGUs to reorganize and enhance the capacities of their respective local disaster risk and management council.  With the law in effect, Escudero stressed that no single unit of the local government should be excused or exempted from integrating disaster planning, management and response into their governance.

“We need 100 percent compliance. The lessons of the past tragedies should by now already strengthened and stabilized disaster management and response in every nook and cranny of our local units as natural disasters could now strike anytime, weather notwithstanding” Escudero said.

RA 10121 requires the establishment of Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (LDRRMO) in every province, city and municipality. Each LDRRMO is also required to have an LDRRM plan, which it shall implement together with local partners and stakeholders.  “All LGUs must conduct hazards and risks assessment, establish possible evacuation centers and keep and update a map of the danger and risk areas in their localities. With these fundamentals coupled with strict adherence to warnings and recommendations, we can avert tragedies like the ones that recently struck Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Compostela Valley,” Escudero explained.

DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo said in a report that 69 out of the 79 provinces in the country have already complied with the law, while 114 out of the 138 cities have followed suit. The report also cited compliance by 1,128 out of 1,496 municipalities.

Compliance in the barangay level, however, has yet to pick up as there are only 1,699 barangays out of the 42,025 nationwide which have so far complied with the provisions of the law.   With the law in effect, Escudero stressed that no single unit of the local government should be excused or exempted from integrating disaster planning, management and response into their governance.

The causes of earthquakes have already been, and continue to be, determined and established.  (Children and adults may read through http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kids/eqscience.php.)  Dr. Gerard Fryer (Hawaii Institute of Geophysics & Planetology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu) in http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/earthquakes.html answers the question “What causes earthquakes?” thus:  ‘The short answer is that earthquakes are caused by faulting, a sudden lateral or vertical movement of rock along a rupture (break) surface.

‘Here's the longer answer: The surface of the Earth is in continuous slow motion. This is plate tectonics – the motion of immense rigid plates at the surface of the Earth in response to flow of rock within the Earth. The plates cover the entire surface of the globe. Since they are all moving they rub against each other in some places (like the San Andreas Fault in California), sink beneath each other in others (like the Peru-Chile Trench along the western border of South America), or spread apart from each other (like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge). At such places the motion isn't smooth--the plates are stuck together at the edges but the rest of each plate is continuing to move, so the rocks along the edges are distorted (what we call "strain"). As the motion continues, the strain builds up to the point where the rock cannot withstand any more bending. With a lurch, the rock breaks and the two sides move. An earthquake is the shaking that radiates out from the breaking rock.

‘People have known about earthquakes for thousands of years, of course, but they didn't know what caused them. In particular, people believed that the breaks in the Earth's surface – faults – which appear after earthquakes, were caused *by* the earthquakes rather than the cause *of* them. It was Bunjiro Koto, a geologist in Japan studying a 60-mile long fault whose two sides shifted about 15 feet in the great Japanese earthquake of 1871, who first suggested that earthquakes were caused by faults. Henry Reid, studying the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, took the idea further. He said that an earthquake is the huge amount of energy released when accumulated strain causes a fault to rupture. He explained that rock twisted further and further out of shape by continuing forces over the centuries eventually yields in a wrenching snap as the two sides of the fault slip to a new position to relieve the strain. This is the idea of "elastic rebound" which is now central to all studies of fault rupture.’

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“Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new.” - Mao Tse Tung, On Contradictions.