Evacuees outside Mt. Kanlaon’s danger zone allowed to go home
BACOLOD CITY—More than 4,000 evacuees from areas outside the Mt. Kanlaon 6-kilometer danger zone in La Castellana town and Bago City in Negros Occidental have been allowed to return home.
Provincial administrator Rayfrando Diaz said Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson and Mayors Nicholas Yulo of Bago City, Rex Jalandoon of La Carlota City and Rhummyla Nicor-Mangilimutan of La Castellana town agreed that only those from outside the 6-km danger zone would be allowed to decamp starting on Jan. 8.
“The mandatory evacuation [remains] for those from within the 6-kilometer radius around the volcano,” Diaz said.
But the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) would rather have those from outside the 6-km danger zone to be moved to a “tent city” in nearby
Himamaylan City instead.
“[We want to] ensure their safety should Mt. Kanlaon erupt again,” said OCD-Western Visayas director Raul Fernandez in a press conference on Jan. 8.
Fernandez, also the chair of Task Force Kanlaon, said they would, however, defer to the decision made by the local officials: “What we can do is give advice. It will be the local officials who will be accountable to their people.”
Threat is real
According to Fernandez, the threat of another eruption remained based on the frequency of its earthquakes as well as ash and sulfur emissions since the volcano erupted on Dec. 9 last year.
“Let us not be complacent. All indicators still point to an imminent eruption. We want to have a manageable situation,” he said.
If the evacuees from La Castellana are moved to the tent city in Himamaylan, Fernandez said their care would be a shared burden with the help of other local governments and not just of the La Castellana municipal government.
At least 8,732 residents in La Castellana, Bago and La Carlota were evacuated after Kanlaon’s Dec. 9 eruption.
About 3,900 evacuees from the 6-km expanded danger zone and from remote areas have to remain in government shelters since it would be difficult to move them out should the volcano erupt anew.
Nicor-Mangilimutan said they were looking at allowing 4,000 of the 6,734 evacuees in La Castellana to go home.
She assured that evacuees from her town would be brought to the tent city in Himamaylan if Kanlaon erupts again.
In Bago City, majority of its 501 evacuees were expected to return home by Wednesday since most were from outside of the 6-km danger zone and were only evacuated because of heavy ashfall, said Dr. Merijene Ortizo, chief of the city’s disaster risk reduction and management office.
“The city government will provide the returning residents with assistance to repair the roofs of their houses that were damaged by Kanlaon’s eruption,” she said.
Only about 49 residents from the danger zone would have to remain in the Bago regional evacuation center.
“They will eventually be transferred to a permanent relocation site,” Ortizo said.
In La Carlota City, Jalandoon said he would be looking for a permanent relocation site for about 1,300 residents from Barangays Yubo and Araal who would not be allowed to go home for their own safety.
He said it would be difficult to evacuate them immediately because they lived in remote areas that had been damaged from ash fall.
