Parañaque probes soil collapse

Parañaque Vice Mayor Anjo Yllana has expressed alarm over reports that the city is under the threat of sinking over the drawing of underground water.

This prompted Yllana, the Council’s presiding officer, to call a special session by inviting officials of the National Water Regulatory Board (NWRB) that made the study and revelation.

Officials of NWRB reported last week in a television interview that Parañaque is now at the Level 3 soil underground situation, the lowest among the 14 cities and three municipalities in Metro Manila.

If a city or town that is currently situated under the Level 3 scale, the NWRB said, it shows that no pressure to protect the geological structure beneath the city.

The NWRB said that Parañaque City is now located in a "water delta" or soil underground.

With an intensity 6 earthquake, the city soil has a tendency to collapse, and this poses grave danger to the over one million residents.

Studies showed that this problem worsened due to short of supply of pipe water coming from the Manila’s north sector or from the Angat and La Mesa dams, located in Bulacan and Quezon City, respectively.

It was learned that the treated water supply from the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System is "blocked" by other cities of the metropolis before it reaches Parañaque.

Due to the short supply of pipe water, Yllana revealed that residential, commercial and industrial consumers are forced to draw water from the ground by using booster pumps.

"Our short supply of pipe water has been a problem for the past four decades," he said.