MANILA - THE Philippine capital is woefully unprepared for a major quake that could hit at any time and kill tens of thousands of people, flattening nearly half the city's homes, experts warn.
Authorities in the Philippines have been anxiously looking at the vulnerabilities of Manila, a megalopolis of more than 12 million people, following the devastating earthquakes to hit Japan and New Zealand.
Like those countries, the Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire - a belt around the Pacific area dotted by active volcanoes and tectonic trenches. And heavily populated urban areas on the Philippines' main island of Luzon, including Manila, sit on or near at least four fault systems.
The most active of these, the Valley Fault System, cuts through the eastern section of the island, including across Manila and suburban areas to the south. Paleoseismic studies indicate the fault moves once every 200 to 400 years, the last time in the 17th century.
It is now primed to trigger a violent quake with an estimated magnitude of 7.2 that would plunge the country into crisis, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology deputy director Bartolome Bautista said Wednesday.
'The fault is ripe for movement. It can move any time,' Dr Bautista told a Senate inquiry into the country's state of disaster preparedness that was called in the wake of last week's 9.0-magnitude quake in Japan. -- AFP
