Quinta shows importance of disaster preparedness

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The effects of tropical depression Quinta should serve as another lesson on the importance of disaster preparedness, according to Undersecretary Benito Ramos, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).

Ramos, while saying that typhoons should teach us to be always prepared, explained: “We should also remember that whenever there is a weather disturbance anywhere in the Philippines, there is no place that will not be affected.”

For a long time, areas in Mindanao had not been visited by a typhoon but with the climate change, the place is now experiencing it, he said in a PNA report yesterday.

Ramos also said that, with the increasing frequency of typhoons visiting the country every year, disaster management should now be a way of life for Filipinos.

“We should always be prepared for any contingency brought about by a natural calamity. This is a responsibility not only of the national and local governments but also of all people,” he said.

The NDRRMC and OCD top official was in Iloilo City to turn over food packs to the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC) and the DSWD for the victims of typhoon Quinta, the last to hit the country in 2012.

He also conducted an aerial inspection on Dec. 30 of the typhoon-hit areas in the island of Panay together with RDRRMC chairperson and OCD-6 director Rosario Cabrera and other council members.

The RDRRMC and OCD reported that a total of 52,157 families equivalent to 251,152 persons were affected by Quinta in 544 barangays of 40 towns and four component cities in Western Visayas.

Some 1,610 houses were totally damaged and 3,543 partially destroyed. Also, 15 persons died of drowning and electrocution, with three remained missing to this day.

Quinta, which triggered flooding and landslides, also damaged millions of pesos worth of agricultural crops and infrastructures. —From the wires (FREEMAN)