Recent calamities such as the powerful earthquake in Cebu has shown that most houses in the Philippines have a tendency to collapse or at least sustain damage because homeowners hire only laborers, instead of professionals like licensed architects and engineers, when building their homes.
According to Rhommel Grutas, supervising science research specialist at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), that was mostly the case in the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Negros Oriental in 2012, the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Bohol the following year, and the magnitude 6.4 earthquake in northern Luzon in 2022.
PHIVOLCS is still assessing the buildings damaged by the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck northern Cebu on September 30. But the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said on Sunday that 18,154 houses so far were damaged.
Grutas, a civil engineer, pointed out, for example, that load bearing walls which form the main part of the house should be made with 6-inch concrete hollow blocks. Yet a lot of homes in the country are made with hollow blocks that are four inches or less.
“So, if you’re the owner, and you want to be more economical, more affordable, then that’s what you’ll buy,” he said, adding that most lot owners looking to build a house are unaware of certain standards that must be followed.
For houses to be resilient to earthquakes, he said owners should observe standards such as those set by the Building Code.
When it comes to the houses that are already built, regardless of the quality of construction, civil engineering professor Benito Pacheco of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, advises that such structures should still be assessed before they continue to be occupied.
“High intensity earthquakes would be expected to cause damage… as the main line of defense in practical structural design is prevention of immediate collapse that would be life-threatening, but not total prevention of damage,” he said.
Every time there is a powerful earthquake, Filipinos are reminded of the need to have their homes and buildings checked, or for those whose homes are damaged, to build back better. However, as we usually do, we always forget all about it after some time, and only remember when another one jolts our short memories.
Will this earthquake that hit close to home, being the strongest that Negrenses have felt in some time, serve as a lasting reminder of this need to check our homes and have the necessary work done? Or will we forget all about it all over again, especially if our local government doesn’t remind us by making inspections mandatory?*
