TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines â€“ The director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) has urged local governments in Cagayan Valley to brace themselves for the likely occurrence of an Intensity 8 earthquake brought by the impact of climate change on the environment.

Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said the â€œworst case scenarioâ€ could happen without warning in the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Isabela, and Cagayan and the Cordillera provinces of Kalinga and Apayao following the occurrence of abnormal weather conditions in northern Luzon.

Solidum, in his visit here last week, said major earthquakes that struck Lallo, Cagayan in 1690, Basco, Batanes in 1918 and Nueva Vizcaya in 1990 could happen again without warning anytime.

He thus urged local governments to start drawing up plans for mitigating the impact of such catastrophes.

He added that local governments at this stage must also identify and establish their evacuation sites and institutionalize effective response management during calamities.

For his part, Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy III said work has begun on a P200-million provincial evacuation center near the capitol grounds from funding from the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

He said evacuation centers will also be put up in four isolated Pacific coastal towns in the province.