The tsunami scare

I am an early bird, waking up regularly at 5:00 o’clock every morning. I was shocked when the first message I received was from my mother’s. My mother usually text me in the afternoon or evening. Then you’ll sense something’s wrong.

Her SMS registered at 4:06:37 AM in my phone. And she was telling me that they already had evacuated to higher ground since there was a tsunami alert or warning. I didn’t hear news about the Chilean quake. So the first thing that came to my mind that it was a hoax.

In the 90’s, there was a gossip about a volcano erupting in the Pacific Ocean and engulfing Mindanao in its series of huge explosions. Many of my neighbors actually had left for fear of such event.

I asked my mother if it’s the local government unit who issued the tsunami advisory. She confirmed it. I then asked my neighbors regarding the news, we were on our way to climb the mountain near our village, and they all had heard, from TV News, of the tsunami warning that was issued in the eastern part of the country in response to the Chilean quake.

In our small town in the part of Surigao del Sur, the alert was issued at 10:00 o’clock on the Saturday’s night, as relayed by my mother. They had started evacuation one hour before midnight.

It was the mammoth quake, 8.8 in magnitude, in Chile that prompted Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) to alert 19 provinces on the country’s eastern shores against the danger of a tsunami hitting between 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (Feb 28, 2010).

The tsunami alert was issued for the provinces of Batanes Group of Islands, Cagayan, northernmost areas of Ilocos Norte, Isabela, Quezon, Aurora, Camarines Sur and Norte, Albay, Catanduanes, Sorsogon, Northern and Eastern Samar, Leyte, Southern Leyte, Surigao del Norte and del Sur, Davao Oriental and del Sur.

However, Phivolcs lifted the alert at past 3 p.m.

This tsunami warning was also being carried out in different countries in the Pacific. It was even observed in Hawaii that sea water had receded and exposed seabed. The coasts of Japan and Russia had been battered by it. Waves of up to of 2.0 meters in height were seen. Fortunately these waves were lesser to what was predicted by tsunami experts.

Thanks God that the prediction did not materialize. It would have cost number of lives and devastated the livelihood of the many people particularly in the poor provinces in eastern part across our country. My home province would have been severely affected by such catastrophic event.

The alert would have inconvenienced many people but it was also a good sign that people now are conscious of the government warnings. My family had to carry my grandmother who has an amputated leg. People immediately left after hearing the warning. It’s also a good start to improve the warning systems of the tsunami watch around the globe.

Remarkably, our government was not asleep!