Manila, March 27 -- Pangasinan's Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) has appealed to the public to refrain from making prank calls on the province's 911 emergency hotline.

PDRRMO operations head Vincent Chiu, in a forum on Thursday, said they received about 60,000 prank calls out of the 500,000 calls made since the hotline was launched last year.

He noted that most prank calls came from high school students, prompting the PDRRMO to coordinate with the Department of Education to address the issue.

Chiu emphasized that legitimate emergency calls primarily involve vehicular accidents and fire incidents, to which their teams swiftly respond.

"We are expecting more emergency calls on fire incidents, including ...