“My only call is to have him retrieved today so we can be at peace,” said Dioslinda Deluvio, standing outside a collapsed commercial building in General Santos on Tuesday. Her son was one of two people rescuers believed were still trapped inside.
The building, which housed a grocery store, came down in a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit the southern Philippines and has killed at least 37 people and injured 400. Two survivors had been pulled from the debris and a third person was found dead, officials said. Scanners have so far picked up no signs of life from those who remain. “It’s difficult to accept, as a mother, that my son is still trapped there,” Deluvio said.
A shaking before dawn
The quake struck shortly before 7:40am local time on Monday (23:40 GMT on Sunday), about 20km (12 miles) off the coast of Sarangani province. Tremors were felt in Manado on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi, some 420km (260 miles) away. Over the next two hours a series of strong aftershocks followed, the largest at magnitude 6.5 according to the United States Geological Survey, and tsunami warnings went out across several countries.
General Santos, a coastal city of about 720,000 people, took the worst of it. At least 13 people died there when buildings collapsed or debris fell. The city is now under a state of calamity, with downed power lines and streets covered in rubble.
Another 18 deaths were recorded in Sarangani province, most of them in a landslide that buried houses in the mountainside town of Glan. Deaths were also reported in South Cotabato, Davao Occidental and Balut Island.
Slow going
Parts of Sarangani can be reached only by helicopter. Aftershocks are making the work slower still. “There are still aftershocks, so the rescuers are very cautious in their approach. That’s a challenge,” said Rodrigo Sosmena, the regional civil defence chief.
Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo, reporting from Manila, said it was a miracle the toll was not in the hundreds. Dozens of roads and bridges are damaged, he said, and the public works department is working overtime to clear them while engineers check buildings. “It is a Herculean task,” he said.
Jojo Calma, 44, was driving past a building when it collapsed. “It was the first time I experienced something that strong, that I really couldn’t stop myself from tearing up,” he said.
In the town of Malita, east of General Santos, more than 100 students and a dozen teachers were at a flag-raising ceremony on the first day back after a two-month summer break. Principal Rosavel Cachuela said most students stayed seated and still, which prevented injuries. “Their excitement on the first day of school turned to trauma,” she said.
About 2,000 houses and 117 government buildings were damaged across several provinces, and about 6,000 public school buildings must be assessed before classes can restart. The international airport in General Santos stayed closed, and 63 domestic flights were cancelled.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said emergency agencies had been activated. “The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” he said. This is the most powerful quake to strike the Philippines in eight months, after a magnitude 6.9 tremor off Cebu last year that killed 79 people.
Sources
Sources
- Race to find survivors as Philippines quake toll rises to 37 – Al Jazeera
- Rescuers race to find survivors after deadly Philippine earthquake
