Death toll climbs rapidly after earthquake shakes Philippines

The death toll in yesterday morning’s powerful 7.2- magnitude earthquake that hit Bohol and other parts of Visayas and Mindanao reached 93 yesterday, authorities said.

Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, likened the energy released by the quake to “32 Hiroshima bombs”. The earthquake toppled buildings and historic churches and sent terrified residents into deadly stampedes. At least 16 people died in Bohol and 15 in Cebu, officials said. Scores were injured. “We ran out of the building, and outside, we hugged trees because the tremors were so strong,” said Vilma Yorong, a Bohol provincial government employee.

“When the shaking stopped, I ran to the street and there I saw several injured people. Some were saying their church had collapsed,” she told the Associated Press.

As fear set in, Yorong and the others ran up a mountain, afraid a tsunami would follow the quake. “Minutes after the earthquake, people were pushing each other to go up the hill,” she said.

Panic ensued as people spilled out on the street after the quake struck at 8.12am. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the United States Geological Service reported the quake was centred about 33 kilometres below Carmen town on Bohol Island, where many buildings collapsed, roads cracked apart and bridges fell. Devastation also spread to densely populated Cebu City, across the narrow strait from Bohol, causing deaths when a fish port and a market roof fell.

The strong tremor lasted for a minute and triggered a blackout. Several aftershocks were felt.

The quake set off a stampede in a Cebu gym where people lined up to receive government cash assistance, killing five and injuring eight others, said Neil Sanchez, provincial disaster management officer. In another city nearby, 18 people were injured in the scramble to get out of a shaking building.

Photos from Cebu broadcast on TV stations showed a fallen concrete 2-storey building, and reports said an eight-month-old baby and a second person were pulled out alive.

“It’s fortunate that many offices and schools are closed due to the holiday,” said Jade Ponce, the Cebu mayor’s assistant.

He said that patients were evacuated to basketball courts and other open spaces “but we’ll move them back as soon as the buildings are declared safe”.

Cebu province, about 570 kilometres south of Manila, has a population of more than 2.6 million people. Nearby Bohol has 1.2 million people and is popular among foreigners because of its beach and island resorts.

Bohol governor Edgar Chatto said that a church was reported damaged in the provincial capital of Tagbilaran and a part of the city hall collapsed, injuring one person.

A 17th-century stone church in Loboc town, southwest of Carmen, also crumbled, with nearly half of it reduced to rubble. Other old churches dating from the Spanish colonial period, which are common in the central region, also reported damage, including the bell tower of the centuries-old Santo Nino in Cebu, which collapsed.

Yesterday was a national holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which probably reduced the number of casualties. 

Passenger flights were yesterday put on hold until officials had checked runways and airport buildings for damage. Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, which lies along the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire.