Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Just how successful was Thursday’s (July 30) metro-wide shake drill?
Emergency preparedness advocate Martin Aguda sat down with CNN Philippines anchor and chief correspondent Pia Hontiveros to share how Metro Manila fared in the drill.
According to Aguda, the hype created by the drill was important, especially when it came to teaching people about the basic immediate action drill, otherwise known as the duck-cover-and-hold technique.
Aguda agreed with Hontiveros that building awareness had been achieved and that repeating the drill would be necessary to further familiarize people with the technique.
He said: “Immediate action drills can be done, can be reinforced in a classroom, for example, every month until it becomes second nature to students.”
He added continuous training and synchronization of action would be needed.
Aguda said the scenario of multiple fires happening in Metro Manila in the event of a massive earthquake should be dealt with in a realistically.
He said it may be difficult to deal with all these fires since some areas might be difficult to get to because of debris. To augment firefighting forces, training at the barangay level using a back-to-basics approach – using pails of water – would be helpful.
Aguda said: “I think what we saw today are the assets of government, the private sector, and volunteers when we need immediate response for the magnitude 7.2 (earthquake). However, the response times were not tested because when we talk of earthquakes or megadisasters like these, we don’t expect immediate response from government.”
He added: “In the U.S., they have the 72-hour critical period – that’s three days – wherein citizens have to be self-contained for the first three days. In the worst-case scenario – and we have seen this from previous disasters – we have seen and influx of rescue workers from both national and international rescue communities arriving on the third day.”
Aguda said this is the reason why institutions must have their own response capabilities, and barangays should have their own emergency response organization setup.
