LGUs urged: Use geohazard maps

CEBU, Philippines - Senatorial candidate Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri has urged local government units to use geohazard maps in crafting their comprehensive land use plans and socio-economic development programs following the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) report that Asia is the most disaster-prone region in the world.

“With super typhoons bringing greater destruction to lives and properties, let us now use geohazard maps as guides for LGUs on how they should plan their municipalities, especially when allowing the construction of community infrastructure and residential settlement sites,” Zubiri said.

Geohazard mapping indicates areas that are vulnerable to floods, earthquakes, landslides, and other natural hazards as determined by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

The UNISDR report said that thousands of people died in extreme disasters in 2012, and properties worth more than $100 billion were lost for the third year in a row.

In the Philippines, one of the most damaging disasters was typhoon Pablo which left at least 1,900 dead or missing in Mindanao last December. It also destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses, vital infrastructure, and vast tracts of agricultural lands, displacing large number of families and affecting the livelihood of hundreds of thousands  of farmers and rural workers.

“We may not be able to prevent or avoid typhoons and other natural disasters but we could mitigate the destructions such as the one brought by Typhoons Ondoy, Sendong and Pablo if we will only use the information and technology available to us,” Zubiri said.

Zubiri who is running under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) said that one mitigation measure is to ban the construction of housing settlements in high-risk areas as identified in geohazard maps.

According to the UNIDR, the 310 disaster events in 2012 killed more than 9,300 people, displaced 106 million others, and damaged $138 billion worth of property mainly in the United States, Italy and China.

“It is high time that some drastic measures are adopted here in our country. On the other hand, our LGUs under the Disaster Management and Preparedness Act were given the option to exercise their police power to prevent loss of lives and properties, especially during natural disasters,” Zubiri stressed. —/FPL (FREEMAN)