Cebu, Philippines (AP) – Rescuers used their backhoes and sniffer dogs to search for survivors in houses that collapsed and other damaged buildings on Wednesday, the day after the earthquake killed at least 69 people.
The death toll was expected to rise Magnitude 6.9 earthquake It hit around 10pm on Tuesday, locking in an unspecified number of residents in hard-hit city Bogo and rural towns in Cebu.
Sporadicating rain and damaged bridges and roads are blocking the race to save lives, officials said.
“We are still in the prime hour of search and rescue,” Deputy Civil Defense Administrator Bernardo Rafaelite Alejandro IV Bureau said in a news briefing. “There are still many reports of people who have been pinned or attacked on debris.”
The epicenter of the earthquake was said to be a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu, with the dangerous shallow depth movement of 5 kilometers (3 miles) of seafarfault lines, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, with about half of the deaths reported.
The Philippine government is considering whether to seek assistance from foreign governments based on the ongoing rapid damage assessment, Alejandro said.
The United States, Japan, Australia and the European Union have expressed their sincere gratitude to the US.
“We are ready to help us respond as friends, partners and allies of the Philippine government,” Mary Kycarlson, US Ambassador for the Philippines, said in a post on social media platform X.
Workers were attempting to speed up search and rescue efforts at a gathering of mountain village trails struck by landslides and rocks, Bogo city disaster mitigation officer Rex YGOT told the Associated Press early Wednesday.
“It’s difficult to move to the area due to the danger,” said Glen Ursal, another disaster mitigation officer.
Deaths have also been reported from towns outside Medellin and San Remigio. There, three Coast Guard personnel, firefighters and children were killed separately by walls and falls and attempted to safely escape a basketball game at the sports complex, destroyed by Quake.
The earthquake was one of the most powerful things to abuse the central region for over a decade, struck while many people were sleeping or at home.
The Philippine Volcanic Seismic Institute issued a temporary tsunami warning and advised people to stay away from Cebu’s coastline and nearby Leyte and Bililan provinces, as it could potentially be up to 1 meter (3 feet).
No such waves were reported and the tsunami warning was lifted more than three hours later, but thousands of traumatized residents refused to return home and chose to stay in the grassy fields and park overnight despite intermittent rain.
Cebu and other states are still recovering from the tropical storm that hit the Central Region on Friday, killing at least 27 people as they are primarily own deaths and knocking out forces across towns, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Schools and government agencies were closed in earthquake-hit cities and towns while the building was being checked. More than 600 aftershocks were detected after rage Tuesday night, according to the Institute of Volcanology in the Philippines and Telecito Bakolkol.
He warned that rain-soaked mountainsides are susceptible to land and landslides from major earthquakes.
“This was really traumatic for people. They were beaten by storms and shaking by earthquakes,” Bakolkol said. “I don’t want to experience what they’ve experienced.”
One of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, the Philippines is hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to the location of the “ring of fire” in the Pacific Ocean, an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also hit by around 20 typhoons and storms each year.
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Associated Press journalist Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to the report.
