The Taguig City government has conducted an earthquake drill as part of the city’s disaster preparedness program.
Supervised by the city’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (DRRMO) and the City Health Office – Emergency Management Service, the participants practiced the Drop, Cover and Hold technique during the ground shaking scenario in Barangay Hagonoy on Thursday.
As tremors may have after-effects, simulations of other different scenarios like fire suppression, police response, evacuation, search and rescue, traffic management, extraction, and medical response were also conducted as part of the drill.
The drill aims to educate citizens on what to do during and after an earthquake, and how to manage the effects the quake could cause.
Local officials believe that frequent earthquake drills and exercises are an extremely important part of any preparedness plan and also help in evaluating the effectiveness of its emergency plan.
Just recently, a powerful earthquake in Afghanistan killed at least 40 people and injured 60 others in areas bordering Pakistan.
Photographs posted on social media showed several heavily damaged mud houses in remote rural areas.
Two years ago, Mayor Lino Edgardo Cayetano and other local officials launched in Taguig a first-ever disaster visibility information system in the country that offers real-time, round-the-clock feeds from cameras situated across some 100 locations.
It can be used in localized flood monitoring, hazard mapping and even in daily community weather updates, providing valuable information to complement information from national agencies such as the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration and Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
The system has earthquake analytics from specific areas in Taguig. It can show the exact distance of an earthquake’s epicenter to a specific place in the city.
Cayetano said the system also highlights Taguig’s agenda of a government that is more proactive in dealing with disaster resilience, response, and prevention.