Classes resume in Busay

CEBU, Philippines - Classes resumed yesterday at Busay Elementary School despite warnings from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau that the school building is no longer safe for occupancy because of the high susceptibility of the area to landslide.

The school suspended classes for three days after a minor landslide near the temporary school site at the barangay sports complex.

School principal Phamela Oliva said the parents were called to a meeting yesterday to assure them that the school building is still safe to use despite the ground movement during the magnitude 7.2 magnitude earthquake two years ago.

The conference was also attended by the officials of the Cebu City Local School Board, Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, Department of Engineering and Public Works, and Barangay Busay.

The MGB-7 recommended in 2014 for the school authorities and city officials to transfer the classes to a safer location.

MGB-7 director Loreto Alburo said the school campus as well as the proposed new school site located adjacent to its present location is “highly susceptible to landslide.”

“The area is in fact unstable and is not viable or safe for development of permanent structures,” he said.

Alburo, however, said they are not discounting the possibility that some engineering initiatives would address the pressing issue.

“We do not totally dismiss the possibility that engineering intervention could mitigate, if not prevent, slope instability following effective and stringent protection measures after a more detailed geological or geohazard study by experts,” he said, adding that a study should not be confined on the specific site but surrounding areas as well. 

MGB has recently sent a letter to Local School Board chairman Ronald Diola informing the latter how perilous the school area is.

Alburo, in a February 9 letter addressed to Barangay Busay Councilor Eliodoro Sanchez, also said that ground subsidence in the area has further advanced, as prevalent in the increase of ground vertical displacement.

In 2011, the ground movement reoccurred damaging the newly-built multi-storey concrete building still within the school. It was found out that a road slip or ground subsidence was mapped along the road junction from the transcentral highway going to the school.

In 2008, a ground crack has affected the school’s sloping ground at the back of the classroom of the abandoned school building.

Alburo said the landslide on August 17 at the barangay sports’ complex may have been attributed to several factors such as heavy rainfall, the type of soil being mostly weathered and typically porous and poorly bedded which has high absorptive capacity, and very steep slopes.

The complex was where classes temporarily held following MGB’s report that the school sits on a landslide prone area.

Areas usually with steep to very steep slopes and underlain by weak materials with recent landslides, escarpments and tension cracks are classified as very high to landslide susceptibility.

DENR-7 Director Isabelo Montejo is urging the local chief executives to revisit and restudy the landslide susceptibility rating to know where landslide or flooding would likely to occur within their respective areas. (FREEMAN)