Foreign experts offer help in city’s disaster program

Foreign dignitaries and experts have trooped to the Summer Capital in the past weeks mainly to find out what assistance they could contribute to the city’s disaster management program.

In a June 29 media forum at City Hall,  City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO) Officer III Louie Glen Lardizabal said the visitors included officials from the United States Embassy and the Danish Ambassador.

On separate occasions and together with CDRRMO personnel, they visited the city’s hazardous areas especially the lagoon area since this was totally flooded in 2009 due to a powerful typhoon affecting many local residents, he disclosed.

Asian Development Bank consultants composed of Australian, Russian, and Indian nationals with their Filipino counterparts also trekked to the highlands and conducted a disaster risk analysis of the city, he said.

Lardizabal pointed out  that results of their risk analysis were not far from that conducted earlier by the CDRRMO and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).

“We are thankful for their help and are really amazed at how fast these foreigners were able to do risk assessments of the city within a few weeks. We do appreciate that they gave us copies of their findings that we can use to improve our own risk assessments,” he said.

He said the CDRRMO lacks technical personnel to do risk analysis and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping on its own so it is very thankful for the reliable support of the MGB, City Engineering Office and City Buildings and Architecture Office.

The ADB risk assessments did not veer far from the MGB findings on hazardous areas in the city including those conducted by other local agencies, Lardizabal said. – Gaby B. Keith