Case study of mount pinatubo

Abstract Mount Punctuation volcano erupted In June 1991 In the main Island of Luzon belonging to the Philippines archipelago.

Huge economic losses and population exodus have followed. This major crisis has been relayed with other crisis due to Lars which have been supplied with eruption deposits. These Lars have occurred every year since 1991 during the rainy season. They will probably last until 2005.

After a brief presentation of the Philippine official response system to disasters, this paper draws up a critical analysis of the deferent kinds of Institutional and social responses played to manage the different crisis and post-crisis phases of this event. Based on three viewpoints: from population, media and other actors, this analysis attempts to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the official management system, especially by studying the efficiency and the range of the taken solutions.

So, it appears that the management of the June 1991 main crisis (eruption) was a success. On the other hand, difficulties have occurred with Lars risk management. Indeed, these Lars have obliged the authorities to protect and recommitted thousands of people. In spite of persistent problems, the management system (monitoring/ warning/evacuation) of alular crises improves year after year. Failures appear especially about rehabilitation program (protection/roughhousing).

Many of direct (lack of means, of preparedness, of coordination, of dialog, etc. And indirect (politico- administrative, socio-economic, cultural contexts) factors come to lock the wheels of the Institutional response system, They defer the socio-economic start of this north Philippines vital area. 1. Introduction: a persistent threat After almost LOS$ one billion in economic losses and 2. Million persons affected, the eruption of Met Punctuation volcano In June 1991 In the Philippines was seen as an event of exceptional Intensity Because of the huge quantity of peristaltic material deposited on the slopes of the volcano (5-7 km) Agenda & al.

1997; Wolfe, 1992), numerous Lars occurred from the very first phases of the eruption when the typhoon Yuan passed over the 10 main waterways flowing down from the volcano. From this time, Lars appeared regularly with an annual frequency corresponding to the arrival of the monsoon and threaten a total area of 770 km. The volumes embroiled by these Lars for the year 1997 have been estimated at 160 million mm concentrated mainly in the valleys of the Passing-Potters, Marcela-Stop.

Atoms, Boca, Online and Jacobin rivers. The volumes which can still be embroiled up to the year 2005 for the first three of these channels are estimated respectively at 60-80, 70 and 200 million mm. As for the Passing-Potters watershed, the towns of Stop.

Lamas, Bachelor, sat Rata, Gauge Mammalian, Approach Ana San Fernando, teen capital AT teen Pangaea province, remain the most exposed agglomerations if we assume that the rears will maintain the same routes as the last seasons (PHILLIPS, 1997).

The need to control this disaster, its consequences and the risks associated with Lars, have, for the past six years, led the Philippine institutions to set up a certain number of structural and non-structural responses to which the populations have reacted more or less well. In fact, though the setting up of these structures has been simplified by a good national knowledge of natural disasters and strong international collaboration, they do not always have the expected scope or efficiency.

An analysis of Hess responses gives a glimpse of a certain number of strong points, as well as some weaknesses in the Philippine system of natural disasters management. 2.

The evolution of the institutional responses 2. 1 . The official theoretic response system The first decree relative to the control of catastrophes in the Philippines dates back to 1978 (Republic of the Philippines, 1978). It led, in 1988, to the setting up of a system of prevention and control (Calamities and Disaster Preparedness Plan) at several administrative levels of action and decision (INDUCE, 1988).

It subordinates to the Coordinating Councils (Disaster Coordinating Councils, DOC) from the national (National-DOC) to the local scale (Barraging-DOC), going through intermediary levels with the Regional, Provincial, Municipal Disaster Coordinating Councils (fig.

2). The National Coordinating Council, which orchestrates everything, is formed of the secretaries from almost all the Ministerial Cabinets, the Head of the Armed Forces, the General Secretary of the Red Cross, the Director of the Philippine Information Agency, and a secretary from the Executive Office of the President.

Its Executive Director is the Administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (COD) and his operational arm the Civil Defense Operation Center, which places him directly under the umbrella of the Department for National Defense, itself placed under the authority of the President of the Republic. The INDUCE plans the guiding activities in the field of communication, warning signals, emergency transportation, evacuation, rescue, engineering, health, rehabilitation, public education and auxiliary services (fire fighting and Police).

Outside the crisis periods during which it activates the control process, the INDUCE roommates a certain number of rules and recommendations (Memorandum Order) aimed at improving the system of response to disasters.

The inferior councils coordinate, above all, the operational control of the crises occurring at their level of activity. They bring together officials, regional, provincial and municipal representatives of the various national agencies who are all gathered in different Task Units.

They are also involved in prevention measures and manage their interior organization according to teen recommendations Issued Day teen upper concerns officials of the BODE are also taken from local population. Since 1990, the Philippine Institute of Volcanically and Seismology (PHILLIPS) has been a member of the INDUCE in the capacity of seismic and volcanic alert Official. It is in this capacity that it played a major role in the control of the 1991 Met Punctuation eruption.

We should note that its counterpart in typhoon and floods alert is the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGES), and that they are both attached to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). 2. 2. The warning and evacuation system surrounding the 1991 eruption The Philippine authorities demonstrated indisputable efficiency to manage the first phases of Met Punctuation crisis, when the population was put in a state of alert.

Indeed, the volcano’s awakening has been diagnosed sufficiently early, the risks were properly defined and the prediction of the zones at risk was based on the examination and interpretation of the volcano’s previous historic and geological events. The authorities were able to predict the paroxysmal phase of the eruption, the warning was given on time, and the population was able to be evacuated.

The number of recorded victims, mostly due to roof collapses and epidemic aftermath Rewet & Newell, 1998; Areas, AAA), is quite small considering the intensity of this eruption, thought to be one of the most awesome of this century (Pyongyang & Newell, 1995) The first signs of unrest (rumblings, fissures, landslides) were reported to PHILLIPS in August 1990 by a nun working with the Etas tribal community living on the north- west side of the volcano. At that time, no direct connection could have been established between these surface manifestations and an awakening of the volcano.

However, on April 3, 1991, the nun returned to PHILLIPS following that seismic remorse, explosions and abnormal steam Jets occurred. After a seismic auscultation of the zone, PHILLIPS was able to conclude that the volcano was reawakening and then, it was decided to evacuate the Etas villages lying within a radius of 10 km around the summit. When American paleontologists of the US Geological Survey (SIS’S) confirmed the threat of an imminent eruption, a 5-levels warning and evacuation system was established on May 13, 1991.

This system included a concentric danger zone around the volcano, fixing progressively four radii of evacuation from 10 to 40 km between June 7 and June 18, depending on the evolution of the threat.

Evacuation orders to 446 centers None 26, 1991) were conveyed to the relevant Coordination Councils (DOC) or local authorities. These evacuation orders were passed on and received relatively well by the population, and this because of a previous intense work on awareness (notably the projection of films) and on field information, carried out by PHILLIPS and SIS’S.

The high credibility of the scientific authorities among the population was notably embodied by the director of PHILLIPS, whose personality came over well In teen meal Ana success. Union eely played an Important role In tens In July 1992, when the Punctuation activity resumed, the system was reactivated up to alert number 5. It was then revised and adapted (December 1992) according to the new, less intense and decreasing activity of the volcano (Pyongyang & al. , 1997).

From that time, as a precaution, the entire zone located within the 10 km radius around the crater has been decreed as permanent high risk sector by PHILLIPS. All human occupation of this zone remains prohibited (Tags & al. , 1994). 2. 3.

The complementary warning and evacuation system for Lars and floods (1991 – 1998) The above-mentioned system has been supplemented since 1991 by a monitoring, warning (long and short term), and evacuation system in case of Lars and floods.

This has been progressively improved. The long-term alert system was first based on the forecasts established by the Punctuation Lars Hazards Testators (PLOT), an emergency unit regrouping geologists from PHILLIPS, from the Philippines Mines and Conscience Bureau (MGM) and the National Institute of Geological Sciences from the University of the Philippines (UP- NIGH), spontaneously gathered on the initiative of a Philippine-American researcher room the University of Illinois (Chicago, USA) on June 16, 1991.

This unit was replaced in 1992 by the Gambles Alular Scientific Monitoring Group (GLOMS), more autonomous and independent than PHILLIPS, which is still involved in the evaluation of the threats (Rudolf, 1995). The cartography of the high-risk zones was also led in collaboration with foreign experts, notably from Indonesia, Switzerland (Swiss Disaster Relief), Japan Pan International Cooperation Agency, CIA) and the United States (US Agency for International Development, SAID).

The risk charts produced have, since 1993, been integrated in a Geographical Information System (GIS) developed in collaboration with the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (DAB) and governed by the National Development Authority (NEED) of Region Ill (Central Luzon). From 1991, the follow-up of the Lars was improved thanks to the installation of a telemetries instrumental monitoring network which was progressively widened. It complements a seismic network to monitor the volcano activity.

These are both governed by PHILLIPS and SIS’S and presently centralized at the Punctuation Volcano Observatory (POP) which was created in 1991 on the former U. S. Clark Air Base (Umbilical, Pangaea).

The short-term system of this network was then developed by combining it with unman surveillance (tout ten crossovers Trot teen Notational Police Ana teen Army), meteorological forecasts from PAGES, and volumetric information from a second network governed by the Office of Civil Defense in collaboration with the Japanese COCA).

This all led to a three-levels alert and general evacuation system orchestrated by the Regional Coordination Council (ROTC) of Central Luzon (fig. 3) (ROTC Ill, 1997). Once warning is given, it is spread at the local level, notably through the various elevate Coordination Councils, using various communication means. The evacuation is the responsibility of both the National Police, which mobiles a variable number of units (three levels of intervention) depending on the size of the zone concerned, and of the various organizations present on the field (No’s, local voluntary associations).

Different complementary shifts allow for the validation and confirmation of the warning, or the involvement of other crisis control participants, such as media and various government agencies.

The population is, then, directed temporarily to the evacuation centers. The majority of these centers (226 at the end of 1993, about 100 in June 1996) are schools or other public buildings (churches, Town Halls, etc. ) to which tent camps must sometimes be added in periods of major evacuation. These evacuation centers are managed by both the ROTC and the No’s.

The relief goods are mostly provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DEWS) and the No’s whose role on the field proves fundamental. This general warning and evacuation system is combined with different measures of information and education depending on the period of the considered alert: – assures aimed at encouraging the population to accept the need to permanently leave the areas which are risky or likely to become long-term risk zones (months or years); – preparation measures aimed at improving short-term evacuation alerts (a few days or hours before).

These awareness programs are aimed at three groups of people directly concerned by the Lars: the population directly or indirectly threatened (the evacuees, for example) (ROTC Ill, ND), the officials and other decision- makers, the Journalists and the Police and Army staff assigned to survey the Lars. They are based essentially on the diffusion of posters, risk charts, brochures, booklets, videos and on public and individual interviews Agenda & al. , 1997). As of now, this alular risk controlling system continues to evolve.

Efforts are concentrated mainly on the short-term warning system: equipment, registration methods, the communication system network, public education, organization of future evacuations (ROTC Ill, 1996). As for the long-term system, it is based on a henceforth dependable cartography of the whole risk zones.

2. 4. Victim assistance and rehabilitation program Resettlement proved inevitable for the Etas and the other communities living in the nearby zone devastated by the peristaltic flows, as well as for the numerous populations directly threatened by Lars as these flowed downstream.

Tater teen evacuations, teen vellums are usually taken In change Day teen INDUCE wanly Is responsible for controlling the evacuation centers. After 45 days, another government structure takes over, the Mount Punctuation Commission (MAC) responsible for the planning of more long-term resettlement and reconstruction. Indeed, immediately after the eruption of Met Punctuation on June 26, 1991 , the Philippine government developed a structure – the Presidential Task Force Punctuation – capable of planning, guiding and coordinating the efforts at rehabilitating the stricken zones.

But in October 1992, this initial structure was dissolved to make way for the MAC, which was placed under the authority of the President of the Republic and empowered to assist the victims of the eruption, Lars and floods. It is composed of eleven members taken from different institutions. It allows for the coordination of about twenty different government agencies. Its activities which were leaned to last up to 1997 have finally been extended until December 31, 2000.

They are based on a program of rehabilitation and integrated development working toward 4 major goals: to provide additional funds for immediate relief of the victims; to establish resettlement centers, homiest and townies; to provide livelihoods and employment opportunities; to repair, reconstruct or replace government infrastructure damaged or destroyed by Met Punctuation (MAC, ND).

It works closely with the various foreign partners above mentioned, and numerous other partners coming from the Private Sector or from on-government organizations.

International assistance focuses mainly on reconstruction. To be resettled, the affected families staying in evacuation centers have to apply for a housing unit to the MAC which generally transfers them into its bunkhouses. The evacuees can remain there several months or even years, prior to be definitively recommendable in a resettlement center. This trip is often difficult owing to the length of the waiting stage and the living conditions in the evacuation centers and the bunkhouses (congestion, lack of supplies.

.. ).

After five years of operation, None 1992 to December 1997), 42,396 families have been recommendable in 23 resettlement centers (10 upland and 23 lowland) in a radius of 35 km around the volcano. This program required more than 6,000 hectares of lands and, to accompany this, 366 km of road, 317 km of electrical network and 267 schools have been constructed, within a US$ 250 millions global fund (MAC, AAA&b).

Beside, a few other resettlement centers are managed by other national or local government agencies, by provincial governments and by certain No’s.

In order to provide evacuees with new Jobs, the MAC and the Technology and Livelihood Resource Center (TALC) have set up the Productivity Center lease program aimed at attracting factories around the resettlement areas. Actually, 10 productive centers accommodate 40 factories which employ 4,872 workers from the resettlement sites. These factories (garment, toys…

) profit by all-equipped building rented at sedulously rates. I nee Just nave to engage at least AT tenet workforce among Punctuation victims.

Near the Madcap resettlement site (7,257 families), the MAC has also established the regional “Furniture City’ which accommodates 14 factories employing 467 craftsmen from the nearby center. To accompany these projects, the MAC has worked out an adapted training program for the rural displaced populations (Stations, 1996; unite, 1996; Cervantes & al. , 1997; MAC, AAA&b; TALC, ND&1998).

In 1998, the MAC planned to resettle 9,000 alular-displaced families still remaining in bunkhouses or evacuation centers.

This, notably through the opening of a 24th resettlement site and the extension of other ones (MAC, AAA & b). On the other hand, the MAC and the TALC begin to introduce the ASANA program whose mission is “to provide the poor with the means to work and earn a living (… And to enhance the capability of the ASANA Partner-Network in providing enterprise development services needed by the poor” (MAC-TALC, 1997; MAC, AAA).

Parallel to these different relief and reconstruction activities, an important protection program for the zones prone to Lars and floods has been in operation since 1992.

It uses a certain number of technical solutions (barriers, dams, dikes, drainage gutters, spillways) aimed at limiting and controlling the flow of sediments from their source to the sea along the main active alular channels. This vast engineering program, quite introversion and quite costly, has already resulted in the dredging of tens of million cubic meters of material, the construction of 85 km of dikes, and the building of numerous bridges. It goes on presently with increasingly huge projects leading to sacrifice numerous downstream sectors converted into reception basins for Lars. 3.

The response of the population 3. . During the warnings and evacuations During the volcano’s eruptive phase in June 1991, most of the population reacted quite well to the evacuation orders, and this owing to the previous awareness, preparation and coordination efforts from the authorities on the field. However, some evacuated Etas changed their minds and returned on the mountain to seek refuge and comfort from their God in caves. Others refused to leave, convinced that the eruption would not be violent enough to reach them, and, above all, scared at the thought of abandoning their belongings and their crops (Lacked, 1991 in Tags & al. 1997).

At the second warning in July 1992, the population reacted even better for they were more prepared and awarded by the previous events. In spite of the repeated pleas from PHILLIPS, 300 Etas families however refused to evacuate (Crisscross, 1992). As for alular warning, the quality of the population response remains irregular and reflects some difficulties on the part of the authorities to properly manage the system set up, notably during the first few years, which ended on several occasions in tens of victims.

Apart Trot tense problems relative to teen evacuations Tort wanly It was sometimes necessary to use force (Montana, 1994), there are, in the population, numerous psychological trauma demonstrated notably by the graffiti on the walls of the abandoned houses: the people seem to be noticeably traumatized by these evacuations. During the first ones, some believed it was the end of the world, or that death was immanent.

Numerous symptoms (fits of hysteria, stress) persist in the refuges after the evacuations, in particular for children Nominees, 1993 in Baboon- Battista, 1997).

Stress also touches those still living near the alular channels which are active during rainy season periods, and among those anxiously awaiting the warning signals. However some positive responses have been developed among these people. Indeed, in some villages, the inhabitants develop their own surveillance and warning system tit their own observation teams. Others, even more organized, proceed to the manipulation of available vehicles to make up for the shortage of official means needed for the evacuations.

But the main source of difficulties and danger stems from the fact that one part of the population, at least those most threatened, insist on remaining in their native villages, or on returning there systematically until the coming of the Lars. We will see that this behavior, which attests to a certain dose of fatalism, is especially linked to the unattractive and ill-adapted character of the resettlement or evacuation enters. These ones offer, indeed, only a few socio-economic alternatives and impose a “social adaptation” to those who settle there permanently.

The very strong attachment of these people, for one part rural, to their origins, does nothing but reinforces their behavior. According to a study carried out during the first months of 1998 in the Passing-Potters River basin (Gaillardia & al. , 1998; Gaillardia 1999), 12% of the inhabitants of the most threatened zone have already lived in resettlement centers (60% at Bachelor Town Proper).

They explain their come back by the lack of Job (31%), he remoteness of this one (21 and the attachment to their native villages (18%). 3. 2.

After the catastrophe Considering the difficult living conditions in these centers, as well as the waiting period before settling there, the population still remaining in the alular channels gradually adapts more or less passively to their new living conditions in the risk zones. Thus, some people raise their homes above concrete posts.

Those who have lost their houses can only dig to exhume a few recoverable objects of value before leaving to settle some meters away in fortune shelters. Others protect their belongings with sandbags.

Unfortunately, all these protection measures do not have the same efficiency facing Lars. Indeed, while the houses raised above broad and strong concrete posts have already withstood to several alular seasons and, thus, seem to be one the best protection means, sandbagging, almost systematic in certain areas, does not seem very efficient facing Lars (Rudolf, 1995). Otherwise, every Mont AT June, at teen onset AT teen rainy season, many people condos to leave tenet home as a preventive measure.

For instance, 17% of the Passing-Potters watershed population rent a house or relocate to the dwelling of other family members in Angels City or Metro Manila, such as in the resettlement centers (Gaillardia & al. , 1998; Gaillardia, 1999). Indeed, some important flows of population appear, at this time, between the resettlement sites and the threatened villages; the men trying to protect at least their wives and their children while they watch the household belongings (Cola, 1997; Gaillardia, 1999).

Some subsistence activities have also been created: small business, cultivation, smuggling..

. During the first years following the eruption, some people have tried to adapt the agricultural production to the periodical threat. There ere quick growing crops (tomatoes, peanuts, sweet potatoes) instead of the traditional annual yielding produce such as rice or sugar cane. In those zones still at risk, there are efforts to ward off nature’s bad luck by organizing religious processions and prayer sessions.

Protests against the policy of channeling the Lars and of creating vast spreading zones are often vehement. According to the above mentioned study (Gaillardia, 1999), almost 50% of the inhabitants of Bachelor have an unfavorable point of view on the authorities, feeling their town sacrificed to protect San Fernando and Gauge.

The criticisms are sometimes aimed at the local authorities and can even become sources of conflict between neighboring communities, suspecting each other of willingly damaging dikes (Baboon-Battista, 1997).

In the resettlement centers, in spite of the shortage of facilities, the lack of income sources and the difficulties in adapting to congestion or to estrangement from the native village, we can see various initiatives developing among the least resigned. Shopkeepers and craftsmen reopen their shops, local transportations (wheelers, tricycles…

) have been developed, while some farmers return to cultivate their plots of and if these are not buried or too far away. Solidarity helps a lot, but the mood is often morose.

They comfort themselves by awaiting their return to their native places, maybe in a few years. 4. The weaknesses in the institutional response system As we could see through the brief analysis of recent crises linked to the eruption of Met Punctuation, the Philippine system of prevention and management of natural disasters shows a certain number of strength points.

The main result has been the low number of casualties since 1991 and this, in spite of the presence of these articulacy intense and recurrent phenomena which are Lars.

Moreover, the noticeable improvement of the system from year to year, favored no doubt by an important international contribution, attests to the willingness of the authorities to undertake their responsibilities. However, the analysis of the responses and the reactions of the populations, as well as those of the other official or non-official participants involved in crises management, media included, still shows a number of deficiencies and dysfunctions at the root of the authorities difficulties to best control this post-catastrophic situation.