Once burned, twice shy.
Perhaps remembering this maxim, residents of the 74-hectare Apo Island off the coast of Dauin, Negros Oriental, ignored the tsunami warning issued by the government following the intensity 8.9 earthquake that struck Japan last Friday, killing more than 60 people.{{more}}
í¢â‚¬Å“Weí¢â‚¬â„¢re having a procession,í¢â‚¬ said Liberty Pascobello-Rhodes, barangay captain of Apo Island, when contacted by the Dumaguete MetroPost by phone Friday evening.
The procession is in preparation for the island-barangayí¢â‚¬â„¢s fiesta on April 4, Pascobello-Rhodes said.
It can be recalled that in 2005, scores of Apo island residents fled their homes one night and went to higher ground amid a tsunami scare that gripped several parts of the country following the deadly December 2004 tsunami that hit several countries in Asia bordering the Indian Ocean because of an earthquake that hit Banda Aceh in Indonesia.
In the course of their evacuation, several residents who opted to spend the night in the hill were bitten by centipedes, only to find out that the tsunami scare was nothing but a hoax, recalled former Apo Island Barangay Captain Mario Pascobello.
Many fishers in the towns of Zamboanguita and Siaton in southern Negros Oriental, who evacuated their homes because of that same tsunami scare in 2005, came back to find their homes looted, and their motorboats cannibalized of their engines.
