TRAGEDY. Rampaging floods caused by Super Typhoon Rolly on Sunday (Nov. 1, 2020) buried over a hundred houses in mud and boulders in Barangay San Francisco, Guinobatan town in Albay. Five people were killed in the tragedy. (Photo by Connie Calipay)
LEGAZPI CITY – After an aerial survey over Mayon Volcano, the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office (Apsemo) has declared that quarry operations did not trigger the lahar flow that killed five people and submerged houses in volcanic debris in a Guinobatan town village at the height of Super Typhoon Rolly in Albay last Sunday.
Cedric Daep, Apsemo chief, in an interview on Thursday said: “We see in the aerial survey that the volume of lahar was too big to be affected by the quarry sites. In fact, it is the opposite. Without quarrying, the river beds and channels at the foot of Mayon, lahar could have had silted immediately these rivers".
He said, however, it is important for an in-depth investigation to be immediately conducted over the lahar flow incident.
“Really, I cannot find any connection between these quarry sites and the pathways the lahar followed,” Daep told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
He recalled that after a strong eruption of Mt. Mayon in September 1984, a strong typhoon hit Albay and lahar covered the villages of Maninila and Tandarora in Guinobatan; Budiao-Banadero-Matnog channel in Daraga; and Bulawan River in Binitayan in Malilipot, all towns surrounding the volcano.
“And there were no big quarry operations yet at the foot of Mayon that time when these destructive lahar flows covered rivers and villages,” Daep said.
He added that after the Feb. 2, 1993 eruption of the volcano, a typhoon again came at the end of that year and lahar covered the Mayon Riviera Subdivision and Sta. Misericordia village in Sto. Domingo town, as well as several areas in Daraga and Legazpi City.
“But there was no big quarry site or operation yet taking place in Mayon Volcano when these devastating lahar flows hit populated places,” Daep said.
He recalled that when Typhoon Milenyo came in September followed by Super Typhoon Reming in November of 2006, millions of cubic meters of lahar and volcanic debris flowed from Mt. Mayon, killing at least 600 people while 500 others remained missing until today.
“Again, there are no massive quarrying activities going on in Mayon that time,” he said.
What probably triggered the lahar flow tragedy last Sunday, Daep said, was volcanic materials earlier loosened by Typhoon Quinta that came down the rivers.
“Then when Super Typhoon Rolly brought again torrential rains seven days after Quinta, the rivers could not contain anymore the additional volume of the loosened lahar sediments that instead went to the affected villages in Guinobatan,” he said.
Daep said the occurrences of lahar flow triggered by torrential rains or strong typhoons are part of the hazards posed by a very active volcano such as Mayon.
Meanwhile, Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) regional director Guillermo Molina said a task force created by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) main office in Manila is set to arrive in Albay to investigate the quarry operations and the extent of volcanic materials that cascaded down the slopes of the volcano during the onslaught of "Rolly".
The task force, he said, will be a nine-man team composed of mining engineers, geologists, volcanologists, and representatives from the local government units who would undertake an assessment on the quarry operations and the lahar threat around the volcano.
Molina said the regional task force earlier created would be merged with the one from the DENR central office.
He also said the task force would determine if the terms and conditions of the quarry permit issued to the operators were strictly followed.
The DENR on Wednesday sent a letter to Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara recommending the suspension of all quarry operations around Mayon volcano.
Bichara issued on the same day an executive order temporarily suspending quarry operation in the town of Guinobatan.
When asked why the town was singled out in the suspension order, the governor said, “Quarrying in Guinobatan was the center of the burning controversy, why to burn the entire house (Albay)?”
He lamented that some people who are against quarrying reportedly organized a rally when President Rodrigo Duterte visited the town on Tuesday.
Because of that incident, the President ordered DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu to stop quarry operations in Albay, he said.
Bichara said, “to stop quarry operation is not good since, after the disaster that hit the region, we are now in the rehabilitation phase, we have to rebuild the various infrastructure destroyed by 'Quinta' and 'Rolly'.”
“When we stop to quarry, where do we get the aggregates to construct the public infrastructure the government plans to build?” he added.
Bichara said when he took over as governor of the province, he was able to increase the revenues from quarrying from a measly PHP10 million to over PHP200 million a year.
Of this amount, 30 percent goes to the host municipality, another 30 percent to the province, and the rest or 40 percent goes to the host barangays, the governor said. (PNA)
