CRACKED. Personnel of the City Engineering Office assess Thursday (July 28, 2022) the roads in San Fernando City, La Union following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Wednesday. The Department of Public Works and Highways has already recorded PHP125 million in damage to roads and bridges in the region. (Photo courtesy of City of San Fernando La Union)
MALASIQUI, Pangasinan – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has recorded PHP125.8 million initial cost of damage to roads and bridges in the Ilocos Region due to the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit northern Luzon on Wednesday.
In a press briefing on Thursday, DPWH Ilocos Region Disaster Risk Reduction and Management focal person engineer Josefina Oamar said of the total cost of damage, PHP54.2 million are on roads and PHP71.58 million are on bridges.
“We are in the process of assessing all bridges as most of the damage from the earthquake are on the bridges,” she said.
Oamar said most of the damaged bridges are in Ilocos Sur, which experienced Intensity 6.
Some 12 national roads in the region are still totally closed following the disaster on Wednesday.
“We have already cleared numerous intermittent major and minor rockslides and landslides so some roads are already passable,” she said.
Oamar said they are still assessing the earthquake damage to slope protection and flood control projects in the region.
“We have assessed our buildings and there was not much, they sustained only minor cracks on the walls,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) in the Ilocos Region reported in the same press briefing that there are 212 partially damaged and 15 totally damaged schools in the region.
OCD Ilocos regional information officer Mark Masudog said of the total number of partially damaged schools, 79 are in Pangasinan, 39 in Ilocos Norte, eight in Ilocos Sur, and 86 in La Union; while for the totally damaged, nine are in Pangasinan and six in Ilocos Norte.
Masudog said assessment of other infrastructure in the region is ongoing. (PNA)
