‘Resilient’ houses underway for typhoon-hit Dinagat Islands residents
CONSTRUCTION is underway for the first of at least 60 “resilient” relocation houses in Dinagat Islands intended for those whose homes were totally destroyed during Typhoon Rai, locally named Odette, in December last year.
“The construction of these buildings are laboriously done,” the Dinagat provincial government said in a statement in the local language, “especially the foundation that will hold resilient houses.”
An initial 20 housing units are currently being built in Barangay Cuarinta, San Jose, one of the relocation areas identified as low-risk from calamity threats such Typhoon Odette.
Work on the access road for the site is also ongoing.
The housing projects, dubbed Angat Buhay sa Kalikasang Buhay Villages, are an initiative of the provincial government and supported by Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” G. Robredo, the Robredo People’s Council, Tanging Yaman Foundation, Assisi Development Foundation, and BALAOD Mindanaw.
“In our Bayanihan Dinagat recovery plan, we included resilient and safe housing as one of our primary objectives,” said the provincial government led by Gov. Arlene “Kaka” J. Bag-Ao.
“Our engineers, planners, and workers, together with our policy makers and each and every member of our recovery team are doing our very best to ensure that we can build houses that will be able to withstand typhoons like Odette.”
Typhoon Rai, the 15th and strongest to hit the Philippines in 2021, made its second of nine landfalls in Dinagat Islands. It affected more than 2.99 million families across 11 of the country’s 17 regions, based on data from the national disaster management council.
In Dinagat, 16,336 houses were totally destroyed while another 14,104 were partially damaged. — MSJ
