SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union – The Disaster Incident Management Task Group (DIMTG) of the Police Regional Office 1 (PRO1) under by Police Senior Superintendent Marlou C. Chan, TG Commander/ Deputy Regional Director for Operations (DRDO) reported relatively low damage figures from Typhoon “Egay” that hit Northern Luzon over the weekend.
Based on the monitoring of the PRO1 DIMTG (as of 8:00 AM of July 6), a total of 7,883 persons from 1,897 families were rescued and evacuated to the 23 evacuation centers in the different areas of the region since the onslaught of the natural calamity Saturday night.
These evacuees were all from the province of La Union particularly from the municipalities of Aringay, San Gabriel, San Juan, Bacnotan, Luna, Bangar, Bauang and City of San Fernando.
The records revealed that six civilians incurred injuries due to the typhoon while one (1) police personnel was wounded during the conduct of rescue operation in barangay Biday, City of San Fernando.
Chan said, the pre-emptive measures undertaken by the concerned agencies and the citizens to include the early activation of the DIMTG up to the municipal and police stations greatly contributed to safer rescue operations and lesser number of victims considering that the people were already given the appropriate warnings on what to do during the onslaught of weather disturbances, especially those situated in flood-prone and landslide-prone communities regionwide.
The PRO1 DIMTG Commander also added that around 277 police personnel were earlier deployed in the rescue operations as part of the overall efforts to ensure the effective and efficient execution of disaster risk reduction and management in order to achieve the overall objective of keeping the people safe from eminent danger due to the weather disturbances.
“As part of our pre-emptive measures, as early as July 3, we have already activated the DIMTGs down to police station level and alerted our rescue operation teams to respond appropriately in cooperation with the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD1)”, PSSupt. Chan added.
Earlier, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the Ilocos Region identified a number of disaster-prone communities in the whole region considering that they are either flood-prone or landslide-prone that pose a serious threat to life and limb, thus, appropriate measures must be undertaken by concerned government agencies, local governments and even the people themselves to spare them from the threats of natural calamities by moving to safer grounds prior to the onslaught of typhoons and other natural calamities.
Meanwhile, personnel of the Currimao Police Station in Ilocos Norte rescued early this morning (July 6) four (4) Chinese Nationals and one (1) Taiwanese from an adrift fishing vessel along the seashore of Barangay Torre in Currimao town.
The foreign nationals were brought to Currimao Municipal Health Office for medical treatment, while the Currimao MPS is now conducting investigation.
By Dexter A. See
