A powerful earthquake that shook the southern Philippines killed at least one villager and injured several others as thousands scrambled out of their homes in panic and jammed roads to higher ground after a tsunami warning was issued, officials said yesterday.
The US Geological Survey reported that the magnitude 7.6 quake on Saturday night struck at a depth of 32km, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it expected tsunamis to hit the southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, Palau and Malaysia, but later dropped that warning.
In Japan, authorities issued evacuation orders late on Saturday in various parts of Okinawa Prefecture, including for the entire coastal area, affecting thousands of people.
Photo: AP
A pregnant woman died after she, her husband and daughter were hit by a 4.5m concrete wall that collapsed in their neighborhood as the ground shook and prompted them to flee from their home in Tagum in Davao del Norte province, Tagum Disaster Risk Reduction Management officer Shieldon Isidoro said.
The husband and daughter were injured.
Two other children and their parents jumped from a second-floor window in panic as their house swayed, but were not injured after landing on a grassy lot, said Isidoro, who was at his home when the ground started to shake.
“Initially the swaying was weak. Then it quickly became stronger and I could hardly stand. My perfume bottles fell off a table, pictures on my wall swung and I heard people screaming outside: ‘Get out, get out, earthquake, earthquake,’” Isidoro said.
While he feared the roof of his house would collapse on him, Isidoro said he was more worried that there could be many casualties in Tagum, a city of about 300,000 people, where he had led regular earthquake drills, which he said helped prevent more deaths and injuries.
Hundreds of patients were evacuated from a Tagum hospital, but later were escorted back after an inspection showed no major damage to the building, officials said.
Philippine Minister of Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr told a news conference that authorities were assessing the quake’s impact, but initial reports indicated there were no major damages except for two damaged bridges and pockets of power outages.
Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Teresito Bacolcol said that shortly after the quake hit, his agency advised residents along the coast of Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental provinces, which were near the epicenter of the undersea quake, to immediately evacuate to higher ground or move farther inland.
Pictures posted on the Facebook account of Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur showed residents fleeing to higher ground on foot or aboard cars, trucks, motorcycles and tricycle taxis overnight.
Many villagers who fled to evacuation centers returned to their homes yesterday, officials said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS