A powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit the central Philippines yesterday, just one day after another smaller quake rattled the country’s north. Now Red Cross volunteers, army troops, police, and villagers are using cranes, crow bars, and sniffer dogs to search for the missing.
One of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, the Philippines has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of active volcanos and fault lines that God created in the Pacific Ocean.
Sadly, Monday’s first quake left at least 16 people dead. Disaster-response agent Ricardo Jalad says the first quake damaged houses, roads, bridges, Roman Catholic churches, an international airport terminal, and a supermarket. Many worked overnight to recover bodies in the rubble.
On Tuesday morning, rescuers pulled out a man alive, sparking cheers and applause.
“We’re all very happy, many clapped their hands in relief because we’re still finding survivors,” Porac Councilor Maynard Lapid says.
At least 14 people remain missing in the rice-growing agricultural region, most of them in the rubble of Monday’s collapsed supermarket.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from the second earthquake on Tuesday. But the quake did prompt residents to dash out of houses and office workers to scamper to safety. Many described the ground movement like sea waves.
Sensitive equipment recorded more than 400 aftershocks from the two earthquakes—although most of them were unfelt by humans. The U.S. Geological Survey’s preliminary estimate is that more than 49 million people felt at least some shaking from the earthquake.
Philippine seismologists believe the back-to-back quakes in the last two days were unrelated and caused by different local faults.
(St. Catherine Church suffered damage following an earthquake north of Manila, Philippines, Tuesday, April 23, 2019. AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
