Poverty and geography a potent mix in Philippine disasters

Dec 6, 2006, 10:22 GMT

Manila - For almost four decades, Maricel Arevalo and her family escaped the wrath of Mayon Volcano in the eastern Philippines until a wall of mud and boulders crashed into their village at the height of a typhoon last week.

The 38-year-old mother of three, born and raised at the foot of the fiery mountain in Albay province, 330 kilometres south of Manila, lost all her three children in the deluge.

Arevalo and her family was one of dozens of families living within the volcano's six-kilometre permanent danger zone, which was supposed to be off limits to people.

'I thought I could already predict the mood of Mayon Volcano, I was wrong,' she told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'We were able to escape from her eruptions in the past, but not her mudslides.'

More than 1,100 people are dead or missing in the mudslides, which also left more than one million people homeless.

Government scientists said typhoon Durian's unusually heavy rains loosened volcanic debris on the upper slopes of Mayon, setting off the deadly mudflows that buried surrounding communities.

Arevalo was all alone in her vain search for her children, aged between eight and 12, in a vast wasteland of volcanic debris and boulders where her village once was. Her husband was confined in hospital, unable to walk.

She said she would want to start all over again and try to forget the tragedy that befell her family, but poverty has chained her to the deadly slopes of vicious Mayon.

'We have no money, we have no savings, we have nowhere else to go but to continue living, continue surviving here in this cursed land,' Arevalo said.

With more than one third of the estimated 85.5 million Filipinos living in abject poverty, multitudes often risk their lives, residing on slopes of volcanoes, under bridges, on river banks, anywhere where death seems to breathe on their necks.

What further complicates the scene is the fact that the country lies on the pathway of the earth's No. 1 typhoon generator and the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions frequently occur.

Earlier in the year, a mountain collapsed and buried a village in the eastern province of Leyte, killing close to 1,000 people. Shortly before Durian, three powerful typhoons also slammed the Philippines, killing some 250 people.

The international environmentalist group Greenpeace warned that the havoc of typhoon Durian might only be a portent of more destruction to come due to drastic climate change the world is experiencing.

'The tragic loss of lives and the massive destruction of properties brought about by the super typhoon deserve immediate attention,' said Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Abigail Jabines.

'It should serve as a wake-up call about the need for governments to find ways to avert or mitigate catastrophic impacts of extreme weather events which scientists predict could become more severe because of climate change,' she added.

A study by Leoncio Amadore, one of the top meteorologists in the Philippines, indicated that from 1975 to 2002, intensifying tropical cyclones caused an average of 593 deaths annually and damages to property and agriculture worth close to one billion dollars.

'The combination of strong typhoons, excessive precipitation and landslides has caused a great deal of death and destruction in the Philippines,' Amadore noted. 'If we do not act urgently, climate change will further intensify the severity of extreme weather events.'

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has renewed her vow to speed up the government's hazard-mapping programme, aimed at identifying the various naturally hazardous areas in the country.

But for Senator Richard Gordon, who also heads the Philippine National Red Cross, said there are lots of easily identifiable hazardous areas that the government can start clearing out of illegal residents.

Gordon recalled that about three days before Durian struck Albay, he called on the people at the slopes of Mayon and river banks to move to safer places.

'We have to sit down and learn from these tragedies so we will know what to avoid,' he said. 'We have to learn to survive so we can get over this cycle of disaster and poverty and poverty and disaster.'

'If we continue to ignore these tragedies, we're bound to commit the same mistakes,' he added, noting the a good way to start would be the strict implementation of laws banning residence along river banks and other hazardous areas.