NORZAGARAY, Bulacan - The much talked-about âBig Oneâ or the powerful earthquake that could jolt parts of Luzon once the long dormant West Valley fault line moves could bring a double whammy of disastrous proportions even to survivors, particularly those living in Metro Manila and Bulacan.
The first group could suffer prolonged, severe thirst should the quake also cause the aging Angat dam to collapse, while residents of Bulacan, where Angat sits, could drown from rampaging waters.
Local engineers said they had long flagged the need to revisit the structural integrity of the 47-year-old dam, and at the weekend, Governor Wilhelmino M. Sy-Alvarado raised the alert anew after meeting local village chiefs in his capacity as the provincial disaster risk reduction and monitoring council.
The main dike of Angat dam, which supplies 97 percent of the potable water needs of Metro Manila, is over the fault line, according to studies of experts.
Devastated by quake...and thirsty
The governor said it is hard to imagine where residents of Metro Manila will get their water once the source is destroyed.
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He said that Angat dam is located on the highest slope of the mountains in eastern Bulacan.
It is hard, he added, to imagine how fast rampaging waters possibly 30 meters high will wipe out villages.
"If the dam breaks, will you still hide under the table? How can you escape a rampaging water whose speed is like a bullet and will bring big boulders and illegally cut logs?â he said.
Alvarado said that unless the 47 years old Angat dam is immediately repaired and strengthened, it will always serve like the probervial "Sword of Damocles" hanging over the heads of Bulakenyos.
He said the people of Bulacan are once again appealing to the national government to send engineers and experts to prod the new owner of Angat dam, the Korean firm K-Water and a Filipino partner - Â to immediately start its rehabilitation.
Barangay leaders from different parts of Bulacan, particularly along the towns included by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) in their updated Atlas of the West Valley fault line, asked Governor Sy-Alvarado on the earthquake issue.
"The destruction it will cause is unimaginable especially if the 47-year-old Angat dam will collapse because not only the province of Bulacan will be wiped out but also big parts of Pampanga and Metro Manila," said the governor.
Time and again, he has been calling the attention of national government - since he was still a congressman, then a vice governor and now as the top provincial chief executive - to the dangers Angat dam poses when it is jolted by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake.
Alvarado told the village chiefs from the towns of Norzagaray, San Jose Del Monte and Dona Remedios Trinidad, that even if residents of Metro Manila survived the "Big One" they will still face another dilemma of an equally "deadly" proportion.
"They will die of thirst and for a long time will have no supply of potable water," the governor said.
Without water, the governor said it is hard to imagine where residents of Metro Manila will get it once the source is destroyed.
He said that Angat dam is located on the highest slope of the mountains in eastern Bulacan.
Studies way back Cory's time
Alvarado said that even during the administration of former President Corazon Aquino, the government had already initiated studies, with the help of Japan, for the rehabilitation of Angat dam.
He said that even in 1968, the very year its operation started, dam officials and engineering experts already detected leakages and in August 1986, a landslide also occurred near the ex-batching plant site of the dam.
Alvarado added that even President Benigno S. Aquino III was so concerned over the structural integrity of the 47 years old dam that he appropriated P5.7 billion for its immediate repair and strengthening. That got stalled, however, when the Supreme Court ruled that the privatization of the Angat dam is legal after Korean Water (K-Water) found a Filipino business firm as its partner .
The contract between the new operator of the dam and the government states that K-Water will shoulder and initiate its rehabilitation and fortification. That, if ever, will be the first ever repair since Angat dam began operation on October 1968.
Alvarado said that it is high time for government to prod the new owners to immediately start its rehabilitation and implement the studies of Tonkin and Taylor, the European dam experts company commissioned by the Philippine government to study and formulate the fortification of the dam.
"Up to now, they are still in the drawing board even if there is already a viable study by a credible company. We, in Bulacan, are asking concerned agencies to help the K-Water in making the structural integrity of Angat dam safe for the next 50 to 100 years," Alvarado said.
While drills are being conducted, most residents here are faithfully relying on prayers.
âAs we continue conducting drills, education campaign and formulate contingency plans, the people of Bulacan are still relying strongly in their faith to God and the power of prayers,â he added.
