FRANCISCO, Amyr Edmar L.

December 23, 2019

STEM 11-3

PLANS BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE BIG ONE HITS

Essay about Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction on The Big One

In 1976, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 shook Mindanao followed by a massive 4 to 5 meters
high tsunami covering 700 kilometers coastline bordering the island. An estimated 5,000 - 8,000 people died,
10,000 were injured, and 90,000 more were left homeless by this major destruction. The Big One on the other
hand have an estimated 7.2 magnitude, and 31,000 human fatalities. Different magnitudes and number of
people affected yet it made a huge destruction to our country so we need to take this seriously. So here are
my plans before, during and after The Big One.

Before planning on what to do during the earthquake, First you need to check the things what will be
affected when The Big One hits. The first thing to check is the strength of your house. PHIVOLCS offers an E-
book that you can asses how strong is your house for an earthquake. Our house gets 9 points on the
assessment and based on the material, 8-10 points is good but requires strengthening. So that is my first step
on preparing for the earthquake. But with a 7.2 magnitude earthquake a strong house is not enough for you to
survive. So what I will do next is prepare our family’s Earthquake survival kit. Our ESK contains important
documents such as birth certificates and title of the house, First-aid kit, Painkillers, Flashlight, whistle, fire
starts, battery powered radio, cellphone, Power bank, ready to eat canned foods, water bottle, and an extra
cash. This kit could be updated according to my family’s decision but for now that’s all that there is. After that,
we will have a meeting place and will designate a friend or relative outside our area to be contacted. Lastly,
my family will conduct an escape plan and identify weak spots on our house.

During the big one, if the earthquake hits while our family is inside the house we will do the drop cover
and hold on safe spots of hour house and then we will proceed on our plan the we talked about before. But if
the earthquake hits while we are at school, we will follow the school policies and practices during earthquake.

After the earthquake, Most likely many houses will be destroyed including ours so our last place to go
is to the evacuation center for our community. MMDA released a list of five sites that will serve as evacuation
emergency field hospitals incase a major earthquake hits the capital. Our community belongs to the east
quadrant which designated the Intramuros golf course to be our evacuation field if the big one hits.

Now, everything seems fine and manageable but even after all this planning, our survival depends on
the actions that we do during the earthquake itself so for me the most plausible thing to do is to prepare
ourselves physically and mentally if The Big One will actually hit the country.
 REFERENCES:
ABS-CBN News. (2019, May 3). How strong an earthquake will the "Big One" be? You need to sit down for the
answer. Retrieved from https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/05/02/19/should-you-be-afraid-of-the-
big-one.
Afinidad-Bernardo, D. R. M. (2017, April 18). Phivolcs: What to do when the 'Big One' comes. Retrieved from
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/health-and-family/2017/04/18/1687011/phivolcs-what-do-when-big-one-
comes.
Charm, N. (n.d.). MMDA identifies 5 field hospitals, evacuation sites in case of major earthquake. Retrieved from
https://www.bworldonline.com/mmda-identifies-5-field-hospitals-evacuation-sites-in-case-of-major-
earthquake/.
Ocd. (2019, February 20). Are we ready for a Big One? Retrieved from
https://pia.gov.ph/features/articles/1018755.
Staff, P. H. I. V. O. L. C. S. (n.d.). PHIVOLCS Module. Retrieved from https://www.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph/.