TACLOBAN CITY—An evacuation center is soon to rise in the area where bunkhouses were hastily constructed to provide temporary shelters for survivors of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” in this city.
A two-story evacuation center will be constructed in Barangay 91, Abucay district with the Department of Social Welfare and Development funding the project at a cost of P10 million.
The project, which had its groundbreaking last Thursday (July 21) is expected to be finished in 120 days, barring any unforeseen events, said Grace Sudario, social marketing officer for risk reduction management of the DSWD-8.
Mayor Cristina Romualdez thanked the DSWD for constructing an evacuation center in Tacloban, ground zero of the world’s strongest typhoon to hit inland.
”As of now, we really lack evacuation centers. So, we’re trying to get more donors. So right now we have to use churches and schools,” Romualdez said.
Aside from churches, schools and barangay halls, the city’s astrodome is used as its main evacuation center.
Sudario said constuction of an evacuation center in Tacloban was delayed by the lack of location.
Abucay village, more than four kilometers away from the city center, was spared from the storm surges that caused the massive destruction of properties and the loss of more than 2,200 lives in the city.
About 172 families were temporarily resettled by the government at the bunkhouses in Barangay 91 after Yolanda pummeled this city on Nov. 8, 2013.
All the families, who were residents of coastal barangays along Sagkahan district, were transferred to their permanent homes at Ridge View in Barangay Cabalawan in April of this year.