Southern Leyte State U conducts earthquake, fire preparedness drill

Southern Leyte State University joined the National Simultaneous Earthquake Drill (NSED) for the first quarter of 2023 on March 22 to assess the responsiveness of the existing disaster preparedness and contingency plans of the university.

Spearheaded by the Office of Environmental Management & Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (EM-DRRM) of the university, headed by Mr. Gordon B. Opina and Chief Security Officers of all campuses, all students, faculty, staff, and visitors observed the “duck, cover, and hold” tips as two sirens simultaneously alarmed for one minute.

The SLSU Emergency Response Volunteers (SERVE), College of Criminal Justice-Emergency Rapid Response Unit (CCJ-ERRU), and SLSU Modulator's Group (SMOG) led the safe flow of evacuation to the respective assembly areas and communicated the safety status of the students, faculty and staff from their respective offices.

Reports were directed to Deputy Incident Commander and the concurrent Dean of CCJ Dr. Gerald Ceniza. Once everyone has been accounted for, Mr. Opina announced that the drill was done.

NSED was participated by all the students, faculty, and staff from across the six campuses of the university as a response to the call of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and show our commitment to disaster safety and preparedness.

Fire preparedness drill

The earthquake drill was followed by the fire preparedness drill. The personnel from the Bureau of Fire Protection-Sogod took the lead in demonstrating how to properly use a dry chemical fire extinguisher observing the "Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep" (PASS) tip.

Some students and employees even participated during the demonstration to have a safety training that teaches them to use the fire extinguishers in case of fire incidents. They were also taught how to put off liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fire and gas leakages through LPG training and drill.

"We highly discouraged to use water in extinguishing chemical fire as water is a conductor," one of the personnel of BFP-Sogod said.

The first quarter Earthquake and Fire Drill is intended to simulate the current capability of the university in terms of execution of incident command system through the activation of the incident command, emergency response with collapsed structure, and emergency communications for emergency response information and coordination.

The activity is in partnership with the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) of Sogod, Philippine National Police (PNP) Sogod Station, Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) Sogod Station, Sogod Emergency Response Team (SERT), Sogod Traffic Management Group (STMG), Sogod Rural Health Unit (RHU), and Sogod Municipal Local Government Operations Office (MLGOO)

Editor's note: This is a developing story. More photos from the external campuses to follow.