Rescuers were still picking through collapsed buildings in the southern Philippines on Tuesday, a day after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 people and drove more than 32,000 from their homes. Most of those displaced went to emergency shelters.
The quake hit on Monday morning, offshore of Mindanao, the country’s second most populous island. Nearly 500 people were injured. Official records listed only four as missing in the nearby southern provinces, but the Office of Civil Defense said several wrecked and badly damaged buildings still had to be searched for survivors or bodies.
Where the dead were found
General Santos, a coastal city of more than 700,000 people and the country’s tuna capital, lost at least 13 residents to collapsed buildings and falling debris. In Sarangani province, at least 18 people died, most of them when a landslide buried houses in the mountain town of Glan, said Rafaelito Alejandro of the Office of Civil Defense. Disaster officials reported further deaths in South Cotabato, Davao Occidental and on Balut Island.
An early government count put the damage at about 2,500 houses and 117 government buildings and facilities across several provinces. The international airport in General Santos stayed closed for a second day. Sixty-three domestic flights were cancelled, with only humanitarian missions allowed through.
Schools shut on opening day
The timing made things worse. Monday was the first day of classes nationwide after a two-month summer break, and many of the injured were young students who had gathered for morning flag-raising ceremonies. About 6,000 public school buildings in the affected provinces now need inspection.
“We cannot force the immediate reopening of schools because we have to ensure the integrity of the buildings,” Alejandro said. Authorities warned that cracked structures could give way in aftershocks, some of which may be dangerously strong.
A small tsunami, a large fear
Many families fled because they expected a tsunami. Waves reached up to 4.6 feet above tide level in the Philippines, and the only reported tsunami damage was to six shanties on stilts in a coastal village. Smaller waves reached Indonesia and Palau, and as far as southern Japan.
The epicenter lay at sea, at a depth of 20 miles and about 20 miles southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani. Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said movement in the Cotabato Trench set it off. It was the strongest quake from that undersea depression since an 8.1-magnitude shock on Aug. 17, 1976, which sent tsunami waves of 26 to 33 feet over several towns and provinces. About 8,000 people died then, Bacolcol said.
His institute had planned to mark the anniversary of that disaster in August by installing markers in vulnerable towns. A 7.8-magnitude quake in 1990 killed more than 1,000 people and wrecked northern provinces and cities.
Response
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. sent senior disaster-mitigation officials from Manila to oversee the rescue work, hand out tens of thousands of food packs and construction materials, and check bridges, roads and other infrastructure. The United States, a treaty ally, said it was coordinating with Manila and was ready to help. France, Japan and New Zealand also offered support.
The Philippines sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and also takes about 20 typhoons and tropical storms a year.
Sources
- 32,000 people displaced by the Philippine earthquake that killed at least 37
- Philippine quake displaces 32,000, while death toll climbs to 37
