300 Dagupan buildings eyed as tsunami shelters

By Liezle BasaInigo

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan — Around 300 high-rise buildings have been pinpointed as possible evacuation centers in case a tsunami hits the city.

Professor Nicanor Melecio, consultant of the city government and head of the Public Alert and Response Management Center, said these buildings will be evaluated by engineers and architects working closely with the city government.

Their task is to determine the structural stability of these buildings eyed as possible evacuation centers.

The city government will initiate a dialogue with owners of these structures in the hope of signing a memorandum of agreement with them to open their buildings and houses to evacuees in the event of a tsunami or high-intensity earthquake.

Earlier, experts revealed that a tsunami as high as eight meters may hit coastal areas of this province, particularly this city, in the event the Manila Trench that starts offshore of Bolinao town triggers a magnitude 8 earthquake.

Since this revelation by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), the Dagupan City government has strengthened its linkages with the agency and sought the conduct of a series of seminars that will equip city disaster risk reduction and management officials with more knowledge on how to save lives when a tsunami strikes.

Corollary to this, the mayor ordered Melecio to see what nearby municipalities the people of Dagupan can run to for safety since it would take only 14 minutes from the moment an undersea earthquake strikes before big waves hit the shores.