In the wake of continuous rainfall in EV
TACLOBAN CITY – Office of Civil Defense Regional Director Lord Byron Torrecarion encourages local government and barangay officials, including residents to check hazards in their area by visiting the website https://hazardhunter.georisk.gov.ph/.
Torrecarion gives this suggestion after the region was battered by widespread rain since December 2022 due to the effect of the shear line and the low pressure area that resulted in flooding and landslide incidents.
HazardHunterPH is the Philippines’ one-stop shop for hazard assessment services and allows the user to quickly and easily generate hazard assessment reports of the user’s selected location.
HazardHunterPH is a product of GeoRisk Philippines, a multi-agency initiative led by the Department Of Science and Technology(DOST)-Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, together with DOST- Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration(Pagasa), DOST- Advanced Science and Technology Institute, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), through its Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), DENR- National Mapping and Resource Information Authority, Department of National Defense-OCD, Department of Education, Department of Health, National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, and Social Housing Finance Corporation.
“We would like to encourage everybody to visit this website. There is this government website https://hazardhunter.georisk.gov.ph/, go there log-in to verify if your barangay is part of that hazard area, if it is prone to landslide or flooding,” Torrecarion said.
With its aim to increase people’s awareness to natural hazards and for preparation of mitigation plans on the effects of hazards, this portal is also helpful to be used by property owners, buyers, land developers, and planners in their need of hazard information and assessment.
“Maganda yan para maging self-aware tayo,” Torrecarion said.
A total of 110, 599 were affected by the heavy rainfall that resulted to widespread flooding in the region that started Sunday evening January 8 due to the effect of LPA.
Majority of these affected families are from Eastern Samar (58, 945) wherein all 22 towns and Borongan City were affected by flooding.
Based on its data, the OCD said that damages to the agriculture sector reached up to P129.74 million affecting 8,989 farmers and fishermen.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
