Quake monitoring upgrade sought

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, or Phivolcs, has raised the need to establish more earthquake monitoring and tsunami early warning systems to intensify hazard mapping in the country.

Phivolcs Director Teresito Bacolcol, speaking at a Senate hearing on the subject, cited the need to detect low-level quake activities that could serve as precursors to larger temblors.

“Why do we want to add more? This is to monitor the number of earthquakes that we have. For example, in 2023, we had 16,655 earthquakes,” he said.

The additional monitoring systems, he said, would reveal active faults with no clear surface expressions. Bacolcol noted that there are 24 active volcanoes and 27 potentially active volcanoes nationwide.

He said Phivolcs has monitored 10 active volcanoes, with only Taal and Mayon having complete monitoring systems.

He pointed out that 80 percent or 66 out of 82 provinces are exposed to tsunamis. At present, he said Phivolcs only has 29 sea level monitoring stations to detect tsunamis.

“We are planning to establish at least 50 more tsunami stations, as there have been around 40 tsunami events in the past 400 years. That means there’s one tsunami event every 10 years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Senator Raffy Tulfo questioned the delayed implementation of 14 project contracts for the establishment of volcanic and earthquake monitoring systems nationwide worth more than P58 million, citing a 2022 report by the Commission on Audit.

“These projects have been delayed for three years. Can you explain the cause of the delay in these projects?” Tulfo asked.

Bacolcol explained that some projects were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic while others were delayed due to the late signing of the memorandums of agreement for the projects.

He also attributed delays to the failure to find appropriate locations for the projects, particularly in Batangas.

“But we have catch-up plans and, in fact, some of these have already been completed,” he said.

Bacolcol noted that the implementation of eight of the 14 contracts was ongoing, while the other six had been completed.