By Mar Serrano/PNA
TIWI, Albay — Over a thousand residents of Barangay Maynonon here have to be permanently moved out to safer grounds after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB) tagged the area as a “no-build-zone” following the discovery of a soil crack at a mountain slope where the village is located.
Manuel Damo, chief of the Tiwi Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), said MGB declared the village as a “no-build-zone” after an MGB assessment team led by Mark Miravalles found a 100-meter soil fracture following the landslides triggered by two days of torrential rains that hit the village last December 28-29.
Damo, in a phone interview Wednesday, said the crack on the mountain slope was discovered during an ocular assessment on December 31.
The village, where 250 families or 1,250 people live, has been considered as landslide-prone.
Damo said the result of the assessment prompted the MGB to recommend the permanent relocation of the whole village to safer ground.
The villagers, he noted, are currently housed at the Cararayan and Cale Public Elementary Schools while awaiting the setting up of temporary shelter units in Barangay Joroan.
Damo also said in compliance with the MGB recommendation, Tiwi Mayor Jaime Villanueva has directed the MDRRMO to scout for permanent relocation sites for the thousands of villagers.
He said at least three possible sites were identified – privately-owned lots in Barangays Joroan, Lourdes and Putsan.
Of the three, the MDRRMO said the most ideal area would be the 10-hectare land owned by the National Power Corp. in Barangay Putsan.
The MGB, in its study, also identified at least eight villages in Tiwi to be low to moderate flood and landslide risk areas. Of moderate risk are Barangays Sugod, Maynonon, Lourdes, Joroan, Misibis, and Mayon while Barangays Bariis and Dapdap are considered high-risk areas for landslides and flooding.
Aside from floods and landslides, other villages are storm surge-prone areas.
Meanwhile, Guillermo Molina, MGB regional director, also in a phone interview, said aside from Barangay Maynonon here, the agency would also declare Ipil village in Buhi and Patitinan in Sagnay, both in Camarines Sur, as “no-build-zone” after being heavily devastated by a recent landslide.
Molina said “the no-build-zone policy is a reiteration to the previous recommendation we have issued in 2014 to local government units where we have identified as high-risk areas for landslides”.
Barangay Ipil was discovered to have three layers of soil cracks, one of which measures 300 meters in length. Affected by the planned relocation there are 369 families or 1,845 people, he noted.
