”People can prepare themselves better and faster,” Montejo said as he presented the early warning device during a press conference at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomic Services Administration (PAGASA) main office building along Agham Road in Diliman, Quezon City on Wednesday.

Montejo explained the early warning devices are tubes with sensors at different levels submerged 20 meters below the ground, sketching how the tilt sensor records data during a landslide and immediately transmits them to the central DoST office.

He explained further that the device can detect the slope deformation at the onset of a landslide with the bulging at the toe or at the foot of the hill to the initial movement of soil mass and the major failure of soil mass as the head of a slope collapsed.

Montejo said the DoST supported and financed a team of experts from the University of the Philippines Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute to undertake a study on how a landslide is developed. At present, DoST is expected to roll out this early warning system technology within the year.

“We are accelerating the deployment of these sensors in ten sites all over the country that are constantly affected by disasters, especially landslides," he said.

The landslide early warning system is just one of the hazard warning devices, all locally developed by the DoST such as the automatic rain gauges, water level gauges and weather monitoring stations.

These devices will enable DoST to generate hourly data on disaster areas.

Director Raymund Liboro of the Science and Technology Information Institute said in an interview that the landslide early warning device can also be used to detect movements in high rise buildings and bridges during earthquakes.

Liboro said installation of the device will cost less than P500,000.

Manila Bulletin