ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 7 February) — Yet another badly hit area in this city in the aftermath of Tropical Typhoon “Basyang” is Barangay Abuno as two steel bridges collapsed and several houses were damaged and inundated by flood waters dawn on Friday.
Leonardo Herbito Jr., among those whose houses were damaged, said the bridges may have fallen around 1 a.m. Thursday, but he wasn’t sure which fell first — the Panul-iran Bridge or the Malindawag Bridge, named after two adjacent sitios of Abuno.
Both are steel bridges, something like the Bailey bridges that were widely used as temporary or portable bridges by Allied forces during World War II.
Remnants of both bridges carried away by the strong river current are still visible in the middle of Tubod River not far from their original sites.
The one at Panul-iran is part of the Lanao del Norte Interior Circumferential Road, which connects Iligan to the province’s mountain municipalities of Tagoloan and Balo-i. Vehicular traffic in that highway is thus rerouted via another highway with much denser traffic.
The other bridge is Sitio Malindawag’s only link to downtown Iligan.
When MindaNews visited the area Saturday morning, residents at Malindawag had no choice but to cross the river to be able to buy food and other essentials. And cross they did through whatever means.
Their temporary bridge of sorts is a thick water pipe about a foot in diameter that spans the entire river. It is scary for most people because the water is more than an average person’s height (I know because I fell while shooting and I panicked when my feet couldn’t reach the river bed), the pipe made of some kind of plastic is round and slippery, and the river’s current was still strong just a day after the big flood. But they had no choice.
To help people keep their balance, residents placed a nylon rope about half an inch thick at waist level. But every now and then, a few fell into the water.
Danilo Gomez, a construction worker residing at Purok 6 in Malindawag, said the steel bridge was built over a decade ago. It withstood several floods in the past.
“It was a calamity, we can do nothing about it,” he told MindaNews. He was worried that it may take some time to build a replacement “because we are in a crisis.”
MindaNews learned later that residents in Malindawag did a “bayanihan” and helped install bamboo support so those who will cross the giant pipe can hold on to something.
Herbito, however, is furious. His complaint is not about the fallen bridges, though.
He blames the Department of Public Works and Highways and the contractor, Dicon Builders Inc., for the lower elevation of the flood-control dike on his side of the river.
Herbito said that had it been higher by just a meter, like the one on the other side, the river would not have overflowed, saving his house.
When he accompanied this reporter for a walk atop the dike downstream not far from his home, he pointed out that the riprap there, built by another contractor, is higher.
Further, he complained that the big, heavy concrete blocks placed on top of the dike near his house were carried by the raging floodwaters and destroyed his wall, the reason that the strong current and debris entered his house.
“Had the blocks been anchored to the dike, maybe with rebars, floodwater may still enter our house, but not with such force,” he said in the vernacular.
MindaNews reached out to Dicon Builders on its Facebook page at 4:46 p.m. Saturday but did not get a reply yet as of posting. (Bobby Timonera / MindaNews)
