Rescuers race to find survivors

Visayas hit by 900 aftershocks

MANILA, Philippines - Rescue workers raced yesterday to reach isolated communities in devastated areas in Bohol and Cebu in the search for survivors as the death toll from Tuesday’s earthquake soared to 151 with dozens of others injured or missing.

Aftershocks – numbering more than 900 as of 4 p.m. yesterday – continued to bedevil survivors, many of whom opted to stay in open spaces like public parks for fear of being caught near or inside crumbling structures.

The 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Bohol, Cebu and other regions in the Visayas Tuesday morning, triggering landslides that engulfed entire homes, ripping apart bridges and tearing down centuries-old churches.

Disaster officials said more bad news was expected as rescue workers have yet to reach some villages and towns.

“Our efforts today are focused on reaching isolated areas. We suspect individuals are trapped out there and we have to conduct search and rescue,” National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) spokesman Reynaldo Balido said.

With many bridges destroyed, roads ripped apart, and power supply cut, authorities were struggling to reach isolated communities and had no idea how bad the damage was in some areas, Balido said.

“We don’t even have an estimate... We are just assuming that since there were collapsed buildings, we must search for them,” Balido said when asked how many people remained missing.

In Loon, a small Bohol coastal town of about 40,000 people just 20 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, shocked survivors wandered around the rubble of collapsed buildings looking for relatives. Rescuers counted 100 dead in the province, said regional military commander Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda.

There were 35 fatalities in the town alone, the highest in Bohol, including those buried in a hospital and in the Our Lady of Light Church.

Loon Mayor Lloyd Lopez said three people in the town remained unaccounted for. Some of the missing were believed to have been trapped inside their collapsed homes. “We believe that they’re still there and are waiting for rescuers,” he said.

“For now most of the barangays in my town remain isolated because of blocking boulders along the roads and highways which we could not move. That’s why we are asking help for heavy equipment to be used in the clearing operations,” Lopez said.

“Even if we advised them to return and retrieve their food supplies from their houses, the residents are traumatized and are afraid to enter their houses,” Lopez said.

Authorities set up tents for those displaced by the quake, while many others who lost their homes moved in with their relatives, Bohol Gov. Edgardo Chato said.

Cebu reported nine fatalities, and one died in Siquijor island. Three people were pulled alive from rubble in Cebu.

Farmer Serafin Megallen said he dug with his hands, brick-by-brick, to retrieve his mother-in-law and cousin from the rubble of their home on Tuesday.

“They were alive but they died of their injuries three hours later. There was no rescue that came, we had to rely on neighbors for help,” he said.

Megallen said a neighbor with a truck tried to drive the bodies to Loon's funeral parlor, only to find out the bridge across a river on the way was destroyed. The bodies were then taken across the river on a boat.

“But no one will give them last rites because the church was also destroyed,” he said.

Ten churches, many of them dating back centuries to Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines, were destroyed or badly damaged in Bohol and Cebu. Loon’s limestone Our Lady of Light church was reduced to mounds of crushed rocks.

Helplessness

In front of the rubble an improvised altar had been erected with a lone statue of the Virgin Mary, where teary residents stopped by to make the sign of the cross.

“We’re trying our best to keep hopes up, but in this desperate situation there is nothing much we can do beyond giving comforting words,” local priest Fr. Tomas Balakayo said.

“I try to be strong but this is terrible, what have these people done to deserve this?”

Meanwhile, the only people involved in the search and rescue efforts yesterday morning in Loon were residents and local police, who themselves had lost their homes or relatives.

They struggled as aftershocks continued to rattle the area. More than 900 aftershocks had been recorded, including one yesterday morning with a magnitude of 5.1, according to authorities.

Most of the confirmed deaths were in Bohol, which is one of the most popular tourist islands in the Philippines because of its beautiful beaches, rolling Chocolate Hills and rare tarsier primates.

Nine people were confirmed to have died in Cebu early yesterday. No foreign tourists were reported killed.

920 aftershocks

Renato Solidum, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said a total of 920 aftershocks were registered as of 4 p.m. yesterday, 21 of which were reportedly felt.

A magnitude 5.1 aftershock struck some 34 kilometers northwest of Tagbilaran City at 9:36 a.m., and was felt strongest in Sibulan, Negros Oriental and Tagbilaran City, Bohol at Intensity 4.

Solidum earlier warned aftershocks could last for weeks or months.

Solidum was among the officials who were with President Aquino in Bohol and Cebu yesterday.

He said teams from Phivolcs were also deployed to the provinces to assess the earthquake’s damage.

He said Tuesday’s earthquake released a force equivalent to 32 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in World War II.

It was strongly felt at Intensity 7 in Tagbilaran City and Intensity 6 in Hinigaran, Negros Occidental, Mactan in Cebu, as well as Cebu, Dumaguete and Mandaue cities.

Classes in private and public schools in Cebu and Bohol as well as in Dumaguete City remain suspended until tomorrow.

Based on a 2004 study of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake can devastate the entire Metro Manila, and kill more than 50,000 people. About 170,000 houses are expected to collapse while 340,000 more are expected to be damaged based on the study.

Relief operations

Meanwhile, the military said it has sent seven helicopters to Bohol and Cebu to support ongoing humanitarian efforts.

A cargo plane yesterday delivered 25,000 lbs. of relief goods to Tagbilaran, Bohol, while three C-130 cargo planes are on standby to airlift vital supplies to devastated areas.

“Four M-35 trucks with 50 military personnel were also deployed to Cebu City to assist in debris clearing, particularly in the partially collapsed Basilica del Sto Niño,” Armed Forces public affairs chief Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala said.

The Mactan-based Armed Forces Central Command (Centcom) has been working with local executives for the deployment of more soldiers and military equipment to ravaged towns.

“While we were hit by a very strong tremor, I believe the response here is good. All agencies are helping each other and the objective is to restore the conditions to normal as soon as possible,” Centcom chief Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda said.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), for its part, would be sending three trained dogs to Bohol province to help in the search for survivors and in the recovery of remains of fatalities.

“These are the same dogs that we sent to Compostella Valley (during Typhoon Pablo) and they were able to recover 11 people. These dogs are trained to locate people who are trapped beneath rubble,” PCG spokesman Commander Armand Balilo said.

The K-9 Team dogs and their handlers were expected to leave Manila for Bohol yesterday on BRP Corregidor.

The PCG contingent would also have a medical team.

The BRP Corregidor would also be carrying 11 trucks of relief goods from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). On standby for deployment to Bohol to deliver relief goods were BRP Pampanga and BRP EDSA.

Another team of rescuers from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) also flew to Bohol to help find survivors.

“Based on reports, Bohol sustained heavier damage so we deemed it right to send another rescue team to assist in the ongoing rescue and clearing operations,” MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino said.

Tolentino said the MMDA rescue operations were in coordination with the local Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council and Bohol Gov. Ed Chato.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda also announced yesterday his deployment of a humanitarian team to Bohol and Cebu.

“Team Albay is responding to the needs of Bohol and Cebu,” Salceda said from Paris, where he attended the recent 5th United Nations Green Climate Fund Board meeting.

“Bohol is Albay’s sister province,” said Salceda, who signed an economic partnership agreement with the provincial government of Bohol in Tagbilaran City in August last year.

The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

The deadliest recorded natural disaster in the Philippines occurred in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a 7.9-magnitude earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern island of Mindanao, killing some 8,000 people. With Celso Amo, Mike Frialde, Evelyn Macairan, Alexis Romero, AP