CEBU, Philippines — Rescuers used backhoes, sniffer dogs, and manual digging to search for survivors in collapsed houses and damaged buildings in the central Philippines on Wednesday, a day after a powerful earthquake killed at least 69 people.
The death toll is expected to rise. The magnitude-6.9 quake struck at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, trapping an unknown number of residents in Bogo city and surrounding rural towns in Cebu province.
Sporadic rain, damaged roads, and broken bridges have severely hampered the rescue efforts.
“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” said Office of Civil Defense Deputy Administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV in a news briefing. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”
The epicenter of the earthquake was located about 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of roughly 90,000 people. The quake occurred at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometers (3 miles).
About half of the confirmed fatalities were in Bogo.
Officials in the outlying municipalities of Medellin and San Remigio also reported deaths. In those towns, three coast guard personnel, a firefighter, and a child were killed by falling debris or collapsing walls during efforts to flee or evacuate from a basketball game held in a sports complex.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) briefly issued a tsunami warning, urging people along the coasts of Cebu, Leyte, and Biliran to stay away from the shoreline in case waves of up to 1 meter (3 feet) could form. That warning was lifted more than three hours later. No significant tsunami was observed.
Despite the lifting of the tsunami alert, thousands of traumatized residents refused to return to their homes, choosing instead to sleep outdoors in parks and open fields overnight, even as intermittent rain fell.
The central region of the Philippines was still recovering from a tropical storm that had passed through the area on Friday before the quake struck, which had killed at least 27 people—mostly from drowning or falling trees—and caused widespread power outages and mandatory evacuations.
More than 600 aftershocks have been recorded since Tuesday night’s initial tremor. PHIVOLCS Director Teresito Bacolcol warned that the already rain-sodden mountainsides are at high risk of landslides in the event of strong aftershocks.
“This was really traumatic to people. They’ve been lashed by a storm then jolted by an earthquake,” Bacolcol said. “I don’t want to experience what they’ve gone through.”
Because the Philippines sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the archipelago is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic activity. The country also faces about 20 typhoons and major storms each year.
Associated Press journalist Jim Gomez in Manila also contributed to this report.
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