MMEIRS Simplified

Day 1

Evening. It’s a typical Tuesday, the traffic, the crowd, the sunset at 6:14 as announced by PAGASA. Except that today you are not coming home from work, but from the WORKSHOP at Shangrila Hotel. You are almost home; looking forward to a simple tinolang manok that you know is stewing in your kitchen.

You get off from the bus and navigate your village road. As you are walking the last few meters to your gate, you feel a sudden jolt. It sort of pushes you forward. At first you don’t know what it is. But the ground continues shaking, up and down, sideways, getting stronger every second. You fall to the ground, unable to keep standing. You hear a booming sound. You hear screams from people inside their homes. You hear breaking glasses. Telephone and power poles sway violently. Then the power goes off. In front of you, the village road is heaving, as if you are riding waves. The strong ground shaking goes on for 50 seconds. It is the longest 50 seconds of your life.

The ground shaking has stopped but you remain on the ground, still feeling dizzy. You try to get up, your knees shake under you. People start pouring out of their homes. Panic and confusion are everywhere. Occasional cries and wails add to the confusion. Around you are toppled poles and fences, collapsed houses, cracked roads, broken water pipes.

You got home as quickly as you can. You recognize your family amongst the crowd on the village street. They are all home, shaken but unhurt. You let out a sigh of relief and say a prayer of thanks. But your family refuses to enter your home. A barangay leader gives instructions to you and your neighbors to move to the basketball court to keep away from objects that may fall or topple.

You move your family as instructed. You try to make a call to other relatives but your mobile phone has no signal. Still you dialed a number. It didn’t work. You finally walked back to check your home. But home is something you barely recognize. Everything seems to be piled up on the floor – appliances, shelves, books, lighting fixtures, family portraits, clothes, your prized Jollibee collectibles, even the tinola dinner.

Among the pile of mess on the floor, you pick up the old battery-operated transistor radio that your mother-in-law refuses to part with. You turn it on. At first you only get static. You play with the dials and catch this piece of news: PHIVOLCS issued a bulletin that says a devastating earthquake, with magnitude 7.2 generated by the nearby West Valley Fault, hit Metropolitan Manila. The ground shaking was felt at PEIS VIII in Metropolitan Manila. Weak to strong aftershocks are expected.

You rummage for blankets and go back to the basketball court. You try to think happy thoughts knowing this would be a very long night. You stay tuned in to the radio. News trickles in.

• There is a major power outage in Metropolitan Manila as well as in the neighboring provinces in Luzon.
• Telephone lines, including cellular networks, are down.
• Many residential houses are heavily damaged and collapsed
• Some school buildings collapsed.
• A few hospitals are heavily damaged, ICU patients need to be transferred, and other patients need to be evacuated.
• Fires broke out in several residential clusters, chemical plants, and few other factories and hospitals.
• Hundreds, if not thousands, are estimated trapped dead or injured from collapsed or burning houses, buildings and factories.
• Abandoned cars, some damaged by falling objects, littered the streets of Metropolitan Manila.

Within the next few hours after the earthquake, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council convened. Not all the member agencies have representatives immediately available.

Day 2-3

You are one of the more fortunate. No one is injured in your household. But your house is damaged and you are not sure if it will survive the next strong aftershock. Also, food and drinking water are becoming scarce. The barangay leaders and community members work together to provide for everyone.

Overnight you felt several moderate to weak after shocks. There is still no electricity, telephone communication, and water. Haze from burning buildings darkens the horizon. Fires still spread unabated.

News reports give more dismal picture of the extent of damage brought by the earthquake:

• The President declares a state of calamity. He mobilizes the Armed Forces of the Philippines for rescue, clearing of debris, and construction of temporary shelters. He suspends schools and offices.
• Philippine flags fly at half-mast.
• PHIVOLCS confirms movement of the West Valley Fault after it conducted an aerial survey over Metropolitan Manila.
• Volunteer rescue groups from Olongapo and Baguio City coordinate with the NDRMMC.
• Back-up power generators are available only in critical public and private offices.
• There are more reports of collapsed houses, now numbering in the thousands, mid- to high-rise buildings, and major bridges
• Many roads are impassable.
• The LRT and MRT railways remain standing but not operational.
• Reports of casualties continue to rise to several thousands.
• Several thousand families have lost their homes and begin to occupy open spaces.
• People rescued from collapsed buildings show crush syndromes and given medical attention on site in temporary medical shelters. They cannot be transferred immediately to hospitals because ambulances cannot get through the roads littered with debris and cars.
• The police contain random acts of looting.

Day 4-7

You continue to occupy the basketball court. There is still no power, communication and water supply.

In the tent clusters that sprouted in parks and other open spaces, the lack of clean water supply makes the outbreak of infectious diseases a threat. In hospitals, injured patients are lined up even along corridors. Again, the lack of clean water is a major problem.

Many people, especially children, suffer from shock, traumatized by the strong ground shaking, the sight of destruction, or being temporarily trapped. Bodies exhumed from rubbles are lined up along the streets. The air has the distinct smell of decay.

International volunteer rescue teams coordinate with the NDRRMC. Rescue will continue in the next few days. Clearing of debris will continue for several weeks to months. Bodies will continue to be recovered among building debris. Relief goods are distributed in evacuation centers. Some evacuation centers receive more relief goods than others. 

Neighboring Asian countries pledge and extend technical, medical and other forms of support. The Government appeals to those with capabilities to join forces in responding to the disaster.

Recovery and rehabilitation will take years and years.

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The story above is not the result of my wild imagination, but an actually earthquake damage script of the first week from the occurrence of a projected large earthquake caused by movement of the Valley Fault Line. The exact text of the script was taken from the Metro-Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS) final report, and was developed by Lynn Paladio-Melosantos of PHIVOLCS based on the projected damage amount and situation from the report. The script contents were discussed with the report study team before being finalized and was used in a tabletop simulation exercise held August 26, 2003.

1) Why was the Metropolitan Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS) undertaken?

Since 1900, more than 30 earthquakes have caused some damage to Metropolitan Manila. Many faults have been identified around and within Metropolitan Manila, but the Valley Fault System that runs north to south along the west and east edges of the Marikina Valley is thought to pose the greatest threat to Metropolitan Manila due to its close proximity.

Of all the natural disasters that Metropolitan Manila has experienced throughout its history (such as tropical cyclones, droughts and floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes), earthquakes pose the greatest threat to the life, property, and the economy. Since Metropolitan Manila is the leading city in the Philippines, and the center of governmental, financial, commercial, and social activities, the impact of a large earthquake in Metropolitan Manila will greatly affect the nation.

The Metropolitan Manila area, together with neighboring provinces, is expected to grow continuously and reach 25 million inhabitants in the expanded urbanized area of 1,500 km2 by 2015. This growing urbanization is creating unacceptable levels of an earthquake disaster in terms of both human and property losses. Therefore, the Metropolitan Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study was undertaken to develop a plan and strategies for “A Safer Metropolitan Manila from Earthquake Impact”.

2) What is the estimated damage scenario based on the study’s findings?

The damage estimation of a potential rupture of the West Valley Fault is that 40% of the total number of residential buildings within Metropolitan Manila will be heavily or partly damaged, and the earthquake will cause approximately 34,000 deaths and 114,000 injuries. Moreover, fire spreading as a secondary effect of the earthquake will cause an additional 18,000 deaths.

The summary for this scenario (Model 08) is shown in the table below:

3) How can this study calculate the number of deaths? Is it reliable?

There are 2 main possible sources of deaths due to this earthquake scenario outlined above. First is building collapse due to ground shaking, and the second is fire. For death by building collapse, the calculation is based on data from past earthquakes, population density and occupancy, ground shaking and strength of buildings. This can be seen in the figure below.

Based on this method, the study came up with the following distribution of estimated death by location within Metro manila.

4) Are schools, hospitals, and other critical public buildings safe?

The study calculates that a number of existing schools, hospitals, police stations and city and municipal buildings will be damaged or destroyed. The summary findings of damage to public buildings is shown in the table below:

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council secretariat, the Office of Civil Defense is located not too far away from the fault line.

The location of the 171 hospitals is shown below:

The location of 702 schools is shown below:

5) How far from the fault line is safe? My house is XX meters away from the fault trace. Is it safe?

The revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Presidential Decree 957 by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) states that:

No development shall be allowed within the 5-meter mandatory easement on both sides of the Marikina Valley Fault Trace and such other fault traces as may be identified by PHIVOLCS. (Approved per Board Res. No. 515, Series of 1992)

However, damage to structures will not only be at the actual fault line itself. Damage to building is calculated based on a damage function based on experience, the strength of the building, and the strength of the ground shaking which already takes into consideration the ground conditions:

The distribution of building damage is shown in this map:

The distribution of building damage is summarized in this table by local government unit:

6) Are the study findings a prediction? When will this earthquake happen?

Below is a response to this question by Norman Tungol of PHIVOLCS:

The Magnitude 7.2 earthquake is not a prediction over a specified time; rather it is the estimated largest credible earthquake that can be generated by movement of the Valley Fault System (VFS, a.k.a. Marikina Fault) -- which runs right through Metro Manila -- based on available geological & seismological data. That is, IF the VFS moves, a M7.2 earthquake CAN be generated. This could produce ground shaking up to Intensity VIII or IX (measured using the 10-step PHIVOLCS Earthquake Intensity Scale) in Metro Manila. MMEIRS did consider other possible sources of earthquake (Philippine Fault, Lubang Fault, Manila Trench, etc.), and found the VFS the biggest threat to Metro Manila.

The above estimate of earthquake hazard is very reasonable. However, the study does not quantify the likelihood of such an event. MMEIRS used a deterministic method in assessing the hazard -- i.e., we determined the VFS as a worst-case source of earthquake, and estimated the probable maximum earthquake this fault can generate.

This method is different from a probabilistic approach, where one estimates the likelihood of an event over a specified time, say, 50 years. So, geologically speaking (over an UNSPECIFIED time), the VFS moving -- thus generating an earthquake up to M7.2 -- is inevitable.

We knew this even before MMEIRS. We do not know, however, WHEN this will happen. Earthquake prediction is still an elusive quest anywhere in the world. For an appreciation of the risk, suffice to say that historically, the Metro Manila area has indeed been repeatedly affected by disastrous earthquakes. What we therefore recommend is to systematically prepare for such an eventuality.

MMEIRS focuses on the effects of a big earthquake in Metro Manila and how best to prepare for such an event. The estimates of damage & casualties are based on empirical observations worldwide, considering population, number of buildings, construction practices, etc. They are very rough estimates, but they do indicate what we've expected all along, damage & casualty CAN be very high, especially considering that the metropolis is host to 14 million people.

There is an interesting discussion in this article of the deterministic approach taken in this study compared to a probabilistic approach.

7) What are the main recommended actions to reduce the impacts of this possible earthquake in Metro Manila?

The study identified 105 priority action plans in the master plan. Of these, 40 are selected (in bold type) as high priority action plans. These selected high priority action plans are essential plans to be initiated as initial steps within 3-6 years (from 2004), in accordance with the overall basic strategies to improve the existing situation.

1. Enhance continuity of national government function with the President’s office
2. Promote urban reform around nationally important facilities
3. Enhancing Emergency Measures of businesses
4. Enhance safety of on-line financial services
5. Create a safer business environment
6. Enhance disaster finance system
7. Improve resistance of residential buildings
8. Promote subdivision development procedures
9. Enhance social housing policy for Illegal Settlement and Poverty Areas
10. Revise comprehensive land use plan
11. Tie down and stabilize propane cylinders against earthquake shaking
12. Enforce disaster mitigation measures for possible fire breakout facilities
13. Promote replacement to unbreakable (plastic-bottled) gasoline vending
14. Promote vulnerability reduction measures for urban industrial zones
15. Introduce urban fire proof development method
16. Enforce further development of existing open spaces and parks
17. Promote disaster resistant urban development, re-development
18. Enforce and develop laws and regulations related to urban planning and building code
19. Research and development on strengthening buildings
20. Promote construction and improvement for earthquake resistant buildings
21. Develop building engineering related human resources/ Improve building construction permission system
22. Strengthen public facilities
23. Research and develop for strengthening public buildings
24. Develop building engineering related human resources
25. Retrofit bridge structure
26. Secure safety of airport facility
27. Secure safety of harbor facility
28. Prepare organizational system among lifeline companies
29. Assess Detail Risk of Each Lifeline
30. Strengthen emergency operation ability
31. Strengthen water distribution function
32. Strengthen electricity supply function
33. Strengthen telecommunications function
34. Revise the emergency plan and manuals of the relevant organizations
35. Enhance information and communication system
36. Enhance the emergency response operations of the public organization, LGUs, and the establishments of hazardous materials
37. Establish the support request system and conclude mutual aid agreements
38. Promote Research and development for Tsunami mechanism and damages
39. Promote tsunami damages preventive measures
40. Strengthen legal basis for disaster management at the national level by updating/replacing PD1566
41. Strengthen legal basis at the local level by adopting model city/municipal ordinance
42. Institutionalize local government framework and financing for disaster management
43. Promote policies that encourage implementation of disaster risk reduction measures
44. Promote the reorganization and revitalization of city/municipal and barangay Disaster Coordinating Councils
45. Promote local government mitigation planning through implementation of the Earthquake Mitigation Handbook and the Earthquake Mitigation and Response Checklists -- Local Planning Guide
46. Conduct training needs assessment and develop capacity building programs for local and barangay Disaster Coordinating Council members and institutions
47. Strengthen barangay level preparedness for disaster response and relief
48. Strengthen the MMDCC by updating its structure and organizing and implementing a MMDCC Work Plan
49. Strengthen and update national and Metropolitan Manila level disaster preparedness plans
50. Strengthen Incident Command System (ICS) and response decision-making systems
51. Encourage inter-local cooperation through zonation of LGUs and Master Mutual Aid Agreement
52. Encourage local emergency response planning through use of the Earthquake Mitigation and Response Checklists -- Local Planning Guide
53. Encourage adoption and utilization of emergency response pocket guide by agencies and LGUs
54. Encourage agencies and local governments to inventory response and relief resources and sources and identify needed disaster management tools and equipment
55. Enhance capacity for training emergency response personnel in response and relief functions
56. Develop and institutionalize Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for key response functions.
57. Develop MMDA Metro Base capabilities for Disaster Operations Center (DOC) operations
58. Establish functional Disaster Operations Centers (DOCs) at city/municipal and barangay levels.
59. Revise the emergency plan and manuals of the relevant organizations
60. Enhance information and communication system
61. Enhance the emergency response operations of the public organizations, LGUs, and the establishments of hazardous materials
62. Establish the support request system and conclude mutual aid agreements
63. Formulate evacuation site and plan for the LGUs
64. Enhance resources for evacuation
65. Secure large scale water source for drinking
66. Formulate emergency supply system of water, food, and other necessities
67. Formulate emergency aid agreement
68. Enhance organizational response capacities
69. Improve government hospital capacities
70. Enhance logistics and medical supplies
71. Expand training programs
72. Establish emergency road network
73. Arrange machineries to DPWH for emergency road response
74. Secure road between Batangas Port to Metropolitan Manila south region
75. Convert one portion of Manila port to earthquake resistant construction
76. Construct Laguna de bay northern shore unloading facility
77. Secure road between Subic port/ Clark field to Metropolitan Manila North region
78. Secure Ninoy Aquino airport functions
79. Develop capacity on search and rescue for refugees
80. Enhance community search and rescue system
81. Establish the system to accept international emergency aid
82. Develop disaster information collection and dissemination system in MMDA, LGUs and Barangays
83. Establish a disaster management center
84. Develop geographic database development for disaster management
85. Train LGU staffs on GIS database and information/ communication system
86. Promote adoption and implementation by local governments and agencies of the Guide for Managing Information concerning disasters
87. Establish partnerships with the media for awareness raising and emergency public information
88. Knowledge development about earthquake hazards and vulnerabilities
89. Increase community resistance to earthquake
90. Enhance the community governance and linkage with LGUs
91. Enhance potential emergency management capacities (Fire/search & rescue, and information management)
92. Enhance the administrative system supporting community activities
93. Enhance school risk management capacity
94. Inculcate a disaster mitigation culture in future generations
95. Formulate temporary refugee housing plan
96. Formulate basic policy for emergency assistance for everyday life.
97. Formulate debris clearance plan for the LGUs
98. Formulation of basic policy for post-disaster peace and order keeping activities
99. Formulate basic reconstruction policies for living, housing, employment and economic activities.
100. Formulate guidelines to urban reconstruction and make a scheme of finances and credits.
101. Establish pre-disaster policies and institutional arrangements for post-disaster reconstruction and mitigation
102. Prepare pre-disaster recovery plans and procedures to ease post-disaster human and physical recovery and rehabilitation
103. Evaluation activity of the Valley Fault System
104. Expansion of basic inventory on buildings and population for detail damage estimation purpose
105. Promotion detail study on comprehensive earthquake disaster estimation

8) Where is the actual trace of the Valley Fault Line? I heard it may run through actual houses and buildings.

The actual fault trace can be seen from this PHIVOLCS high resolution map. There is also this Google map where the fault trace has been overlaid.

9) Where can I download a copy of the full report and its annexes?

You can download the summary of the report from PHIVOLCS here, or the full set of the report including annexes from here. An alternative download location for all the files is here.

10) I have a question but its not listed above? Can I send it to you?

Yes, please send me your practical questions, and I will try my best to answer them.

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