EDITORIAL — When the walls come down

Following hours of heavy rains, two walls collapsed in separate incidents in Barangay Tisa and Barangay San Jose in Cebu City last Sunday. Sadly, each incident claimed a life after debris from the walls landed on houses.

In Tisa the fatality was identified as Jimaimah Ibuña, 17, of Sitio Caduloy Riverside, while in San Jose it was Claire Dosdos, 26, of Purok 5. In each incident four others were also injured.

While it was not sure if the area that Dosdos lived in was considered at any risk, city officials said the area where Ibuña’s family lived in had been declared at constant risk of landslides and the families living there had been advised to evacuate.

This is where it becomes important to heed warnings where hazard zones and high-risk areas are concerned. While we don’t want to shame victims, it has to be mentioned that Jimaimah would probably be alive now --and celebrating her seventeenth birthday next week-- had her family heeded warnings not to settle in the area.

Of course, the owners of the walls also have to answer for what happened. The wall in Tisa was said to have been built too close to the river violating the three-meter easement. Meanwhile, San Jose officials are set to issue the wall owner there a notice of illegal excavation.

We understand that property is at a premium in this city, and those who cannot afford a lot of their own have no choice but to build a home wherever they can. We can see this almost everywhere; people building where they shouldn’t like in riverbanks, under bridges, or in lots owned by private individuals.

And more often than not such houses are built so close there is great risk of a fire spreading quickly, or a landslide affecting more than one house.

Sometimes a family at risk may actually be willing to move, but it may be that authorities have no resettlement area for them, or it might be too far away from their source of livelihood.

People must not build structures that put others at risk, families must not live in areas considered hazard zones, and authorities should do better to persuade them to move somewhere else. We don’t want any more incidents where people die in their homes from falling debris.