Aurora village declared ‘no man’s land’

BALER, Aurora — Gov. Bellaflor Angara said she has declared Barangay Paltik in Dingalan town a "no man’s land" and told some 600 remaining residents there to move to safe areas after the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) found the village to be lying on the Philippine fault zone.

Angara told The STAR that she has also directed the provincial disaster coordinating council (PDCC) to alert for possible evacuation hundreds of residents in eight other barangays in Ma. Aurora, San Luis, Dingalan and Dipaculao towns where many areas were identified as similarly endangered by landslides from the Sierre Madre mountains.

"Dingalan has always been placed on alert for natural calamities because we have not found any relocation site yet for people in the endangered areas there," she said.

Angara said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) informed her that besides Paltik, the Dingalan barangays of Karagsakan and Tanauan also lie on the fault zone.

She said some 600 Paltik residents have already been relocated to a five-hectare portion of Karagsakan which experts declared safe from landslides and not lying on the fault.

"Of that area, some 1.5 hectares are used for residential relocation, while the remaining 3.5 hectares are being used for farming and other livelihood projects," she said.

Angara lamented that 600 more residents, who were not affected by the landslides last year, have refused to be relocated "despite findings that even their areas are in danger."

The MGB recently released a study identifying eight Aurora barangays as in the path of potential landslides which claimed the lives of scores of local folk and destroyed millions of pesos worth of property last year.

The barangays include Villa Aurora in Ma. Aurora, Dimanayat and Diteki in San Luis, Paltik, Garagsakan, Tanauan and Davilan in Dingalan, and Amper in Dipaculao.

The MGB recommended the immediate evacuation of residents of these areas during heavy rains.

Angara said the provincial government has allocated some P13 million for the acquisition of two speedboats and a bigger, though slow-moving boat to be used for rescue and relief operations.

She said social welfare workers have "pre-positioned" food and other basic needs in areas likely to be isolated by landslides or floods, or both, particularly in Dingalan in the south and Dinalungan, Casiguran and Dinasag in the north.

While cellular phone signals now reach all towns in Aurora, Angara said the signals bog down during bad weather.

"So we are also now purchasing more powerful radio communications equipment so that communications will not be interrupted during calamities," she said.