Thousands of residents of an earthquake-hit city in the southern Philippines sought refuge on the streets as aftershocks hit the region yesterday, two days after a earthquake killed six.
The magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Surigao City and nearby areas of Mindanao Island late on Friday, injuring 202, with more than 1,000 homes destroyed or damaged, according to officials.
People who had fled their damaged homes wrapped themselves in blankets and sacks for a second night as they slept side-by-side on the pavement on Saturday, a reporter at the scene said.
Photo: EPA
The Suriago del Norte Province seismology office recorded 130 weaker earthquakes in Surigao, a city of 152,000 people, and in the predominantly agricultural region around it since the earthquake struck, although there were no additional reports of casualties or damage.
“The people are terrified about the aftershocks,” said Romina Marasigan, spokeswoman for the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
“This was the first time Surigao had suffered an earthquake this strong. The previous one occurred in the 1800s,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar — who hails from the region — said over government radio.
Duterte flew to the region yesterday to inspect the response effort, which officials said has shifted to relief and rehabilitation after the last of the dead and injured were pulled from the rubble.
He was accompanied by a military transport plane loaded with generator sets, solar lamps, high-energy biscuits, mosquito nets and blankets for the displaced residents, Marasigan said.
Early yesterday, long lines of people carrying pails and jugs queued for water rations supplied by fire trucks after the earthquake cut off tap-water supply.
“We’re still being hit by aftershocks, and as of now we do not have tap-water supply. The people are suffering,” provincial information officer Mary Escalante told ABS-CBN TV in an interview.
“Buildings that suffered structural damage have been closed,” she said, adding that some schools and gyms that were meant to serve as evacuation centers were among those damaged by the earthquake.
The earthquake also damaged bridges and roads and knocked out the power supply, although electricity was restored in most of Surigao on Saturday.
An average of five earthquakes, most of them undetectable except through instruments, hit the Philippines every day. The nation lies on the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a vast Pacific Ocean region where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.
The last deadly earthquake that hit the country was a magnitude 7.1 earthquake which left more than 220 people dead and destroyed historic churches when it struck the central islands in October 2013.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in