DUMAGUETE CITY–Former Environment Secretary and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Angel Alcala has alerted local government units in Dumaguete City, and the towns of Valencia, Sibulan, San Jose an Amlan to the possibility of earthquakes and a flash flood from the twin lakes Balinsasayao and Danao in Sibulan town because of the existence of four geologic faults that intersect at the southern edge of Lake Danao.
In an e-mailed statement entitled “Unsolicited advice for Gov. Roel Degamo,” Alcala said that while the probability of this scenario is not known, this scenario, which happened earlier in Mt. Parker/Lake Maughan in South Cotabato, is possible.
He said that the twin lakes are separated by a normal fault and the level of Lake Balinsasayao is higher than that of Lake Danao. Another fault, he explained, is the Amlan fault about 1,400 meters west of the lake. “Movements along these intersecting faults near or within the two lakes during an earthquake could trigger a rupture on the lake walls allowing water to seep and eventually result in the collapse of these walls. Should this happen, flush flooding and massive mass movement or landslides would occur,” he wrote.
Alcala urged Gov. Degamo and the mayors of the three other towns to request the Phivolcs and the MGB to inspect the Talinis-Lake Balinsasayao area, to determine whether the recent earthquake had affected the area and to recommend appropriate actions on the part of the local government units.
Last week, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) Director Renato Solidum Jr. and Mines and Geosciences Bureau Director Leo Jasareno gave a lecture to journalists and government officials in Dumaguete City on the science behind earthquakes an tsunamis.
The two DOST officials also called on all local government officials to leading in the mapping of the geological hazards in their own barangays and municipalites and preventing people from building their homes in the vicinity of faults or in places exposed to floods and tsunamis.
“It is ironical,” Alcala noted, “that these events, which cause untold suffering of our people, were the very ones that caused the formation of the Philippines during the past geological ages.”
