We have too much on our plate—climate change, COVID, Delta, Omicron… —but have we forgotten about the ‘Big One’?
Word on the street: “All of Taguig will collapse into the ground.”
So will practically all of Metro Manila, except Las Piñas, or so I heard, and the outskirts, all the way to Laguna. OK, not to scare you: Earthquakes are as yet beyond the scope of our foreknowledge, but volcanologists say, such as Renato Solidum Jr., head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, that the West Valley Fault, which runs from the heights of Sierra Madre down to Laguna, crossing the eastern parts of Quezon City and Makati, the western sides of Marikina and Pasig, parts of Taguig and Muntinlupa, among others, is bound to move, very likely within our lifetime. In the past 1,400 years, the fault has moved four times, so there is reason to assume mathematically that it moves, on average, every after 400 years, give or take 10 to 100 years. The last time it did, according to a GMA report, was 355 years ago, in 1658.
News of this earthquake, “the Big One,” has been shaking up the metropolis and there’s terror, there’s thrill, there’s tremor in the hearts, there’s panic in the cities. One family I know of, whose newly bought townhouse, just 10 minutes from the Southwoods Exit of the Southern Luzon Expressway, is said to be sitting right on top of the fault and already they are considering moving to a safer location, but where?
The earthquake warning is nothing short of a disaster film like San Andreas: In an earthquake of magnitude 7.2, given the level of our disaster preparedness, expect no fewer than 30,000 dead, 100,000 injured, and three million residents in need of immediate evacuation. Over 175,000 buildings will be damaged, according to a report by the Essential Green Environmental Solution. But the worst case scenario—if we do survive the quake, if we do not get swallowed up by the cracking earth, if we do not get buried in the debris of collapsing buildings, if we do not succumb to falling objects, if we do not get burned to death by the fires and the explosions—is when the dams, such as the old Angat Dam that has in ages been in need of rehabilitation, pour raging, rampaging water onto the metropolis, wiping out half of the province of Bulacan and drowning two million people, based on an estimate made by Vice Governor Wilhelmino Sy Alvarado, back when he was governor of Bulacan, and the experts he conferred with.
Earthquakes are in two words “earth attack,” no different from an asteroid (or was it a meteor or a comet?) slamming into earth as it did 65 million years ago, except that they are an attack from within. No disaster is worse, except maybe the dying of the sun in five billion years or so. An earthquake, depending on the intensity, is Towering Inferno, Cassandra Crossing, and The Impossible in one, in a much grander scale, and in the aftermath, should we not have enough food, water, clothing, and space to distribute among the survivors, we can throw The Outbreak and even World War Z in, too.
But if we must look at the silver lining, earthquakes are a natural occurrence. Not a form of punishment. Not Judgment Day. We’ve known since Alfred Wegener first proposed the theory of the continental drift in his 1912 paper The Origin of Continents that we are on land that is constantly moving, swaying in the tides of time, going with the flow of water, wind, fire. There’s gravity, too, that is constantly throwing its weight around.
Do we defy this knowledge every time we hang an artwork framed in solid wood or heavy metal and delicate glass that could kill us in the event an earthquake occurs while we are asleep in our beds? Or when we congest our cities, crowd it with people and buildings, and, “Eureka! No more space to expand horizontally, so we go vertical, the sky’s the limit!”? Or when our building codes do not factor in the likelihood that the ground we build on can literally liquefy? Take note, reclamation advocates! We’ve always known that earthquakes are a matter of when, never if, now or 5,000 years ago when the Chinese first came upon feng shui, the science and art and mythological practice of going with the natural flow of energies on earth.
Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth’s breast, horribly potential, always promising to return... ―Salman Rushdie
The drill is simple, but because it will take at least another lifetime, a whole new generation of forward thinkers, to make Metro Manila earthquake-proof, the most we can do is to minimize the damage. Meet the family and identify the safe zones in the home, under a sturdy table, bench, or door frame or in the corner of inside walls that are less likely to collapse onto you than the outer walls of any structure. Put all heavy objects at the bottom shelves of drawers and cabinets. Install latches on cabinet doors to keep the cabinets from spilling out their contents. In an earthquake, a can of sardines or the edge of a hardbound book or a marble statue is deadlier than all the shaking if it hits you on the spot. If you were caught outdoors, run to the nearest open area. Kids run to the football field or the sprawling grass in the garden, but away from trees or lampposts. Try to identify an area where to meet when the danger is over in case you get separated from loved ones in the commotion.
Or watch as many disaster movies as you can, like San Andreas, pretty shallow but rife with commonsensical tips. The movies might make you paranoid, so might the books, which are far more accurate and articulate, especially Max Brooks’s World War Z, a manifesto of survival in the event of any disaster, and it applies to people of all walks of life, from religious leaders to Hollywood celebrities, from world leaders to looters. The zombies are only a metaphor for the worst thing that can ever happen to us humans.
But, as they say, better a prepper (hang a whistle around your neck, keep a flashlight handy, hoard enough water and canned food) than dead, though dead is not all that bad, if what follows is The Stand, as the King of Horror Stephen King has envisioned it.
Best of all, pray!