Time to look into our disaster preparedness

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky we are blessed and honored to have on our show, Mr. Super Architect, Archt. Felino Palafox Jr. of Palafox Associates on the question whether we can still make Metro Cebu safe, beautiful and above all, livable. Jun Palafox has a Master’s Degree in Environmental Planning through a scholarship from the United Nations (UN) Development Program (UNDP), which is why he is the only Filipino and the only Southeast Asian architectural firm that made it to the World’s Top 200 in the London-based Architecture Magazine.

 Few architects have the vision of Jun Palafox and we do share a lot of dreams for what the Philippines, specifically Cebu, should grow into the future. But then dreams also suffer from a lot of frustrations. But the difference is, Jun Palafox can create his dreams into a reality. He was tapped by the Ayala Group to design what is now the Ayala Business Park. SM also uses his services, especially when he designed and built the Marikina Mall, where the vehicles were on the first two floors anticipating flooding in that area. So when Typhoon “Ondoy” came, only the car park in SM Marikina was flooded.

 In 2004 JICA asked him to do a study on the preparedness in handling earthquakes and natural disasters for the Philippines. I still have to see that study but I would like to believe that our local governments don’t care to follow the suggestions of Archt. Palafox. With the Tsunami striking Japan, perhaps we should consider looking seriously and see what Palafox said about our preparedness. So watch this very interesting and very informative show with Super Architect Jun Palafox tonight on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm.

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 It’s been seven years since a horrified world saw on satellite TV how the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 devastated the City of Banda Aceh. Last Friday, once again, the world was horrified seeing the damage the 8.9 in the Richter Scale earthquake that struck near the city of Sendai north of Tokyo. This earthquake triggered one of the biggest tsunamis that the world had ever seen. Looking at all the TV footages of this natural disaster in Japan will forever be etched in our memories.

 Right now hundreds of people have been declared dead and at least ten thousand missing in just one village in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture due to the earthquake and the tsunami that struck a few minutes later. I’m sure that the death toll would rise when rescuers shift to the rubble of this disaster. One American also died in California when 8 ft waves slammed into the California coast hours after the tsunami alert was issued to the US.

 Just imagine, amongst all the nations in the world, it is Japan that is the most prepared for natural disasters from earthquakes, tsunamis or typhoons. Yet despite all the money and effort that the Japanese government spent to make their buildings earthquake-proof, this is one huge earthquake that sort of caught the Japanese unprepared as it is the biggest magnitude earthquake ever to strike Japan. The rescue efforts were swift as the government of Prime Minster Naoto Kan immediately had Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to immediately do rescue work in the earthquake ravage areas, especially in areas hard hit by the tsunami.

 What complicates the natural disaster that struck Japan is that, the Fukushima Reactor no. 1 apparently exploded, although the metal encasing, which contains the nuclear reactor inside, was still intact. The Japanese Nuclear Agency moved swiftly to evacuate more than a hundred thousand people away from the 20-kilometer radius as radioactive material was released to the air to stabilize the shut down of the nuclear plant, thus fears of a possible Chernobyl type meltdown is on the minds of the world.

 30% of Japan’s power uses nuclear energy and with this potential nuclear disaster, people this early are already issuing a warning against the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Powered Plant (BNPP), which was shut down during the Cory Aquino administration. I’m not really worried about that. If there is anything we should be worried about, it is whether our buildings here in Metro Cebu can withstand a huge earthquake. Cebu has been quite lucky because we have not experienced a huge earthquake, but our neighboring islands like Leyte is earthquake-prone and the last big one that struck them a few years ago stopped power lines and cut power to Cebu.

 Perhaps it is time to look into our disaster preparedness programs. An earthquake with the magnitude that struck New Zealand is enough to bring down the two Mactan Bridges. If this happens, it would cripple the economy of Cebu. So perhaps we should do some kind of study on what could happen to us in Cebu if a big earthquake struck us and what the citizenry ought to do to survive a natural disaster.

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