A few days ago, I attended a two-hour lecture about earthquakes, which was facilitated by the management of building I live in. A representative of Department of Science and Technology Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (DOST – Phivolcs), a geologist, gave the lecture.

I have to admit that I only half-listened because I was reading some materials for my Spanish class, but I gathered the following information (not including the usual definition of terms):

– The Philippine fault is the longest fault in the Philippines. It stretches from Luzon all the way down to Mindanao.

– In the past 1400 years, the West Valley Fault (?) has moved four times in an interval of 400 years (doing the math will just make you say what? So do not do the math). The last movement was in 1658, hence the preparations for the Big One.

On a personal note, I found out that:

– The building where I live is 4.5 kilometers away from the nearest fault. You can find out how close to or far you are from a fault by using faultfinder.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph.

– According to structural engineers, our building can withstand earthquakes of intensity 7.2, the strongest one to hit so far. I pray that they are 100% correct, and our developer did not cut corners during construction.

– The evacuation area for the residents is an open area near a grocery store a block away from our building.

– Our building belongs to the northern team (includes Quezon City and San Juan City, among others) of the evacuation plan for Metro Manila. Our safe evacuation areas as a city are Veteran’s Memorial Medical Center, University of the Philippines – Diliman (UPD) Open Ground, and UPD Sunken Garden, which can hold 87,000, 45,000 and 15,000 people, respectively.

– This northern team can go to the following places for medical needs: Philippine Veteran’s Hospital, Quezon Memorial Circle, and UPD.

During the lecture, the geologist gave the attendees two pamphlets, Phivolcs Earthquake Intensity Scale and Phivolcs Earthquake Preparedness Guide. This entry includes scanned images of Earthquake Preparedness Guide.

For a related entry, please read Phivolcs Earthquake Intensity Scale.

For inquiries and information, please contact DOST-Phivolcs at (02) 426 – 1468 to 79. For more details, please visit DOST-Phivolcs website, www.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph.