False tsunami rumor drives typhoon victims upland

MANILA, Philippines - About a thousand traumatized survivors of the Philippines’ deadliest typhoon fled their homes in Antique following false rumors of a tsunami, civil defense officials said yesterday.

Officials in Antique were visiting upland villages where people had fled overnight to convince them there was no danger and it was safe to return to their coastal homes, said Broderick Train, chief of the provincial disaster risk reduction and management office.

“These are people who have been traumatized by their experience with  Super Typhoon Yolanda. When the false information began spreading yesterday they immediately fled,” he told AFP in a telephone interview.

He said the provincial government was trying to convince them to return home, as there had been no earthquake to trigger a tsunami.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said it had not recorded any big earthquakes over the weekend and had not issued any tsunami alert.

Train said the erroneous information was circulated either through Facebook or through text messaging.

“People panicked especially those in northern Antique,” Train told radio dzBB yesterday.

He said the evacuation of residents started Friday night and continued until early morning of Sunday. 

“People here are still scared. They still have trauma because of Super Typhoon Yolanda and then they will receive news like this so they reacted that way,” Train said.

Train said officials have yet to find out who spread the false alert that triggered evacuations in the small coastal towns of Laua-an, Culasi, Sebaste, Barbaza, Tibiao and Pandan in Antique.

“I would say there are about a thousand people who fled their homes overnight,” Train said.

Leck Benitez, spokesman for Antique’s Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told AFP it was likely criminals have spread the rumors by mobile telephone text messages.

“When people leave their homes they become targets for break-ins,” Benitez added.

Benitez said the towns where evacuations were reported had been hard-hit by Yolanda, which struck the central Philippines on Nov. 8 with winds of up to 315 kilometers per hour.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the typhoon, along with tsunami-like storm surges that struck Samar and Leyte, killed at least 5,632 people, with 1,759 others still missing. – With Helen Flores