Fallen bridges, damaged roads challenge relief ops

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines  —  Damaged roads and fallen bridges isolated the towns of  Maribojoc, Loon and Calape, making relief operation difficult until the choppers and barges came.

Four choppers were provided to transport relief goods to complement those that the speedboats could manage to carry.

When Abatan Bridge collapsed right after the earthquake, isolating Maribojoc, the provincial government-led quick response and relief team was left with the Desamparados Bridge in Calape as the next option to pass through.

The first batch of 800 relief packs reached Maribojoc the following day but, when aftershocks brought down the Desamparados Bridge, the next two batches of  500 dispatched by 5 p.m. and another later of the day failed to reach their destination.

This forced the relief team to go around for other routes to reach Maribojoc, but it had to go back to its base and only proceeded later to the Manga seaport where the goods were loaded on boats to Maribojoc port at dawn of Thursday.

At first, police personnel cordoned off Desamparados Bridge for safety, but later gave in and allowed light vehicles to pass, just to let medicines into the town.

As of this writing, the routes deemed impassable are the Cortes-Balilihan-Macaas Road, Tagbilaran East Road-Baclayon and Loay due to settlement of pavement, Tagbilaran North Road km-89+689 for road slip and settlement of pavement and Loay Interior Road, also for settlement of pavement.

Other roads with similar stuation are Tagbilaran-Antequera-San Isidro network, Tagbilaran-Maribojoc, Catigbian-San Isidro (Brgy. Caimbang), Loon-Calape, Balilihan-Antequera, Albur-Loay, Buenavista-Getafe, Caboy in Clarin town, Lapaz in Carmen town and the Antequera-Brgy. Canumay-Brgy. Bungahan network.

Damaged bridges are the Abatan, Camayaan, Tultogan in Calape town, Tagbawan in Alburquerque, Clarin and Moalang in Loon.

Bridges not passable for settlement of bridge approach are Dimlao in Calape, Daet in Albur, Palo and Hinawanan in Loay, Clarin, Balbalan in Dimiao, Agape in Loay and Panangatan. However, those damaged bridge approaches but still passable are Suarez in Dauis and Salog in Getafe.           

The DPWH said there is a need for new design of the bridges that will replace the damaged ones.

DPWD Sec. Rogelio Singson already deployed engineers to assess structural integrity of  Bohol's structures as ordered by Malacañang.

The agency's budget of  P1.2 billion for Bohol can already cover the works to be undertaken, said Singson, as DPWH planned to erect temporary steel bridges on the sites of the collapsed structures, works that will take three to four weeks to complete. (FREEMAN)