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Albay gov fumes at Pagasa's 'questionable' forecast


MANILA, Philippines - Some 13,000 of the 25,000 families in Albay province who were forcibly evacuated Friday were allowed to return home Saturday, after typhoon "Frank" changed direction and "spared" the province. Albay Gov. Jose Salceda fumed at the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) for a "questionable" forecast that inconvenienced the evacuees. "Typhoons are physical animals, they just don't grow into a monster. In five hours how can you change the signal from 1 to 3?" Salceda said in an interview on dzRH radio. He said Pagasa's forecast last Friday that "Frank" was headed for Albay prompted the provincial government to order the forced evacuation of 25,000 families or 120,000 people. But with "Frank" veering away, and now threatening Panay and Mindoro instead, Salceda allowed 13,000 families to return to their homes. Salceda said the families would be given rice as compensation for their inconvenience. "Sa 25,000, ang 12,000 di pa namin pinapauwi. Ang massive evacuation naging mass decamping except for Masbate dahil ang eye of the storm sa Masbate, 'yan ang di namin pinapa-decamp (We did not allow 12,000 to decamp because they are near Masbate, where the eye of the storm is. We did not allow these families to decamp)," he said. Salceda proposed a "regionalized" weather forecasting system, saying that Pagasa's present setup only relies on the national office in Metro Manila, and thus tend to inconvenience people. "Siguro dapat pag-isipan whether we need to regionalize forecasting, mas applicable at mas responsive (We have to consider whether we need to regionalize forecasting to make it more responsive)," he said. He said there had been three forced evacuations that turned out to be false alarms. Meanwhile, dzRH radio reported that 1,601 persons, 35 buses, 57 trucks, and 27 cars were stranded in Matnog. - GMANews.TV
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