COTABATO CITY, 7 March — A powerful pre-dawn earthquake killed at least 12 people and displaced thousands more in the southern Philippines yesterday.
Officials said the magnitude 6.8 temblor shook Mindanao Island’s 18 million inhabitants at 5:15 a.m. (2115 GMT Tuesday), startling people from their beds and causing them to rush into the streets.
Reports said the sea receded 100 meters from the coastline of two towns in Sarangani province while the walls of Lake Maughan in South Cotabato province caved in, releasing tons of water that washed away houses.
In Tupi town, also in South Cotabato, two churches collapsed.
The quake knocked out electric power in the cities of General Santos, Davao and Cotabato and outlying towns, the civil defense office said. Electricity was restored later in some towns but much of General Santos was still without power at mid-afternoon.
Phivolcs chief Raymundo Punongbayan said the earthquake was strongly felt in the town of Palembang, Sultan Kudarat province, where seismographs recorded it at Intensity 9.
“Residents reported that “they could not stand up because of the shaking,” he said.
It was measured at Intensity 7 in Koronadal, South Cotabato.
(An earthquake’s magnitude, measured with the Richter scale, is the amount of energy it releases. The Mmagnitude is constant. An earthquake’s intensity, measured with the Rossi-Forel scale, is the strength of a quake as felt in a certain area. It varies from place to place.)
At least 10 aftershocks were recorded in the next seven hours, the first two of which were relatively strong, Punongbayan said.
Some superstitious residents in the region fired their guns in the air to drive away evil spirits, causing at least five gunshot injuries, hospital officials in the cities of Cotabato and Kidapawan, officials said.
President Gloria Arroyo said local government officials were working to restore basic services and extend relief assistance.
“I commiserate with all the victims and those who lost their loved ones,” she said in a radio broadcast.
Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of an army division involved in rescue efforts, said two houses in Lake Sebu collapsed, killing two people, while falling cinderblocks crushed two more to death in the town of Maitum.
Two others in the cities of Tacurong and General Santos suffered fatal heart attacks during the quake, civil defense officials said.
Evacuation
Some 5,000 residents fled to higher ground after unusually big waves struck coastal areas on the southern coast of Mindanao, they added.
Mayor Pedro Acharon told local television that 14 people were slightly injured in General Santos, one by a falling object and the rest in stampedes of people rushing from buildings.
Electricity lines snapped and street lamps fell down, but the port city was already “back to normal” by late afternoon, Acharon said.
The quake left a trail of scattered damage across the Rio Grande river basin of Mindanao near the epicenter of the quake. At least 18 houses and two churches, a school and a health center collapsed, and malls, hospitals and bridges suffered cracks.
Police said about 100 people were injured at a tuna processing cannery in General Santos when about 1,000 night shift workers stampeded for the exits.
Some workers were trampled while others suffered cuts after being accidentally slashed by fellow workers who rushed out still carrying knives used to cut tuna.
“We were all scared,” said worker Alona Dagupan, her clothes covered in blood. “The lights went out and we all ran to the door. People were crying.”
Epicenter
Seismologists said a movement of the offshore Cotabato trench in the Celebes Sea caused the quake. Its epicenter was about 135 kilometers (84 miles) west of General Santos.
The quake’s focus was 15 kilometers (nine miles) below the surface, considered shallow by geological standards.
Yesterday’s quake was the strongest to hit Mindanao since 1976, when a tremor caused by the movement of the Cotabato Trench killed some 8,000 people, mostly by a tsunami.
“The magnitude of the earthquake was kind of high and at the same time it was shallow so it was able to generate a (high) intensity level,” Punongbayan said.
“The structures that suffered cracks or other damage should be inspected first by structural engineers to determine if they are safe or unsafe,” he added.
He said there were one meter (3.2 feet) high tsunamis stirred by the quake that hit some coastal towns and villages in southern Mindanao, but that they were not life-threatening.
Punongbayan advised families still in evacuation centers to return to their homes in coastal areas as he did not expect any more tsunamis to occur.
“We will be experiencing aftershocks months after the event. We are not expecting any more tsunamis,” he said.
