Strong aftershock shakes Mindanao

VIEW ON THE GROUND Photo taken on June 8 shows infrastructure damage on one street in Glan, Saranggani. —PHOTO FROM VICE MAYOR JAMES YAP JR. FACEBOOK PAGE

A strong aftershock shook Sarangani province on Saturday morning, even as government agencies scrambled to attend to the effects of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that destroyed or damaged private structures and public infrastructure in parts of Mindanao on June 8.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in its last report that the latest magnitude 5.3 earthquake was tectonic in origin and struck at 10:05 a.m. Saturday, with its epicenter located 30 kilometers off the coast of Glan town in Sarangani at a depth of 17 km.

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READ: Over 500,000 affected by Mindanao quake – DSWD

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But no updated information was available at the Phivolcs website, purportedly because it was undergoing a migration to a new website. The migration apparently also affected the agency’s telephone lines.

The Department of National Defense’s Office of Civil Defense (OCD), supposedly the implementing arm of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), did not carry any updated information and only had old news releases from earlier activities.

The NDRRMC did carry information and situation reports about the stronger magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Maasim, Sarangani, but the latest post of information was dated June 9, or five days after the event.

Later on Saturday, OCD Deputy Administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV explained that the OCD has not been able to release timely information because the agency was still verifying their numbers.

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“As of 6:00 [Saturday] morning, 61 have been reported [from the June 8 earthquake]. The validation is ongoing,” Alejandro said in a radio interview.

He said 33 remained missing injuries tallied 1,221 as of Saturday, he added. He did not mention any data for the Saturday earthquake.

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Most of the deaths in General Santos City, he said, were due to falling debris, while victims in Jose Abad Santos and Sarangani Island, both in Davao Occidental died from landslides.

“We will have many reported missing in Sarangani and Jose Abad Santos, which are hard to reach due to landslides that blocked road networks,” Alejandro said.

The disaster agency official said they even had difficulty in communications because their generator sets ran out of gasoline after two to three days.

He admitted that people in Jose Abad Santos and Glan in Sarangani were isolated in the first 72 hours because of the damaged roads and they had to use helicopters and marine vessels.

For the last three days, rescue personnel focused on Sarangani Island, Balut Island, Jose Abad Santos all in Davao Occidental, and Glan in Sarangani province.

Alejandro said they are struggling to bring water, food and housing materials, including tents, to the most devastated parts, Glan in Sarangani and Jose Abad Santos in Davao Occidental and General Santos City.

DSWD update

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) also did not have updated information about the second earthquake, but the agency reported that over 500,000 people were affected by the June 8 earthquake.

Government humanitarian assistance has exceeded P84 million, DSWD said after recieving a report from its Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center.

The DSWD said a total of 137,081 families, or 553,068 people, from 401 barangays in Regions IX, XI, XII and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao were affected.

At least 2,131 families, or 9,393 people, were staying in 26 operational evacuation centers, while 13,480 families, or 54,274 people, were taking temporary shelter with relatives and friends outside evacuation facilities.

Damage to housing also continued to mount, with 8,865 homes reported totally destroyed and another 36,691 partially damaged across affected communities.

The DSWD said humanitarian assistance provided by the national government, local government units and partner agencies had reached P84.26 million.

Available relief resources stood at more than P5.16 billion, including P748.11 million under the Quick Response Fund and over P4.41 billion worth of food and nonfood items prepositioned for disaster response.

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The latest figures reflect a significant increase from the initial days following the disaster, as assessment teams continue to validate damage and identify affected families across Mindanao. —With a report from Hazel P. Villa