Organize 'earthquake rescue team' now

MANILA, Philippines - The portent of massive earthquake hitting this country is a fact too horrible to contemplate. The Haiti catastrophe can happen anywhere especially where tectonic and geologic fault lines are located — this country included. It is said that the longest fault line is located under the archipelagic whole of the country. The Philippines is within the “ring of fire” where active volcanoes are located and catastrophic earthquakes occur frequently due precisely to tectonic faults surrounding the Pacific Ocean.

We are forewarned and so must be forearmed against this terrifying probability. We strongly suggest to Secretary Norberto Gonzales of the DND and the National Disaster Coordinating Council to immediately set up an “Earthquake Rescue Division” to start in Metro Manila in coordination with the local government units which already have their own rescue units. This rescue team should be composed of trained paramedics, the military, the facilities of the different hospitals in Metro Manila, doctor-volunteers, nurses, medical companies which carry medicines that shall be needed, and construction firms with heavy equipment which can be used in extracting people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Even now this agency can make arrangements with the different schools to use their grounds as “tent cities” by people displaced by the calamity. A “food and water bank” must be ready for this emergency; and just as important, hundreds of tents, body bags and a lot of disinfectants.

Like it or not, there will be high-rise buildings and residential structures that will collapse and many trapped under the rubble. The possibility of the spread of diseases is not remote. Such are the portents we face that is why before the catastrophe occurs the government and the private sector must prepare. Now!   — Former Senator EDDIE ILARDE