ON Tuesday, September 30, a powerful earthquake struck the Philippines, killing at least 69 people. This disaster comes just a week after a series of destructive typhoons struck communities, destroying homes, collapsing roads and cutting off vital power supplies. Families who were already struggling from those storms now face yet another devastating crisis.
A strong magnitude earthquake of 6.9 struck central Philippines at 10pm local time. Thousands spent the night on the streets amid repeated aftershocks.. The province of Cebu suffered the greatest devastation and has now declared a state of calamity. This is an official recognition of the scale of destruction and disruption facing local communities.
At least 69 people are known to have died, although numbers are continuing to rise as rescuers search through the rubble for survivors.
The Philippines is prone to disasters triggered by natural hazards and dangerous tropical storms. Thousands of families were still working to recover from the devastating impact of powerful typhoons that swept across the country last week. These storms have already destroyed homes, cut off electricity and left communities without accessible roads.
Now, many of these same communities have been struck again by the earthquake. Roads have cracked and bridges have collapsed, making the delivery of life-saving aid even more difficult.
Most of the earthquake victims were from Bogo, a small town on one of the largest islands in the Visayas Islands, the Philippines’ central region – and the place closest to the earthquake’s epicentre.
Images coming out of Bogo show body bags lined on the streets and hundreds of people being treated in tent hospitals. A number of those who died in Tuesday’s earthquake in Bogo had lived in a village built to house victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the central Philippines 12 years ago, killing more than 6,000 people.
On Wednesday evening, Bogo was hit by yet another aftershock, this one at a magnitude of 4.7, with tremors felt in Cebu city and the neighbouring Leyte islands.
The Philippines is very vulnerable to natural disasters. It is located on the geologically unstable ‘Ring of Fire’ – so called because of the high number of earthquakes and volcanoes that occur here. The South East Asian island country also lies in the path of typhoons that sweep across the Pacific Ocean every year.
More than a dozen people were killed after tropical storm Bualoi and typhoon Ragasa hit the Philippines earlier last month. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and a handful remain missing.
Ewegottalove, through its overseas charitable arm Changing Lives Cymru, already provides financial support to impoverished families living in the Visayas provinces and we have had reports that injuries occurred when the quake was felt at least 150 miles away from the epicentre in Tapaz, Capiz.
Families in low-lying areas are already in fear of flooding from swollen rivers in the aftermath of the most recent typhoons. Changing Lives Cymru will continue to monitor the situation in the Visayas and is planning to set up a GoFundMe appeal in light of this critical and unstable situation.