Hundreds of aftershocks from Wednesday’s strong earthquake rocked the northern Philippines overnight, sending anguished residents sleeping outdoors, many reported Thursday (July 28th), as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr visited the region.
A magnitude 7 earthquake struck northern Abra province on Wednesday morning, killing at least five people and injuring more than 150. The powerful quake destroyed buildings and triggered landslides, and even caused shake the buildings as far as the capital Manila, 300 km away.
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Over 800 recorded replicas
“Aftershocks have been occurring almost every 15, 20 minutes since yesterdaysaid Reggi Tolentino, a restaurant owner in Bangued, the regional capital. “Many slept outside last night, almost all families“, he added. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr arrived in the province Thursday morning to survey the damage, according to presidential palace television which broadcast his meeting with local officials live on Facebook. More than 800 aftershocks have been recorded since the main quake struck, including 24 strong enough to be felt, the local seismological agency said.
In Abra, which suffered the full force of the earthquake, the damage was “very minimal“, told AFP Colonel Maly Cula, police chief. “We don’t have many people in the evacuation sites although many people remain on the streets due to the aftershocksMaly Cula said. In the city of Vigan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist destination in Ilocos Sur province, centuries-old structures built during the Spanish colonial period have been damaged.
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A total of 460 buildings in the province were affected, including the historic bell tower of Bantay, a popular tourist attraction, which partially collapsed, provincial governor Jeremias Singson told Teleradyo. “Our tourism industry and small business owners have been really impactedsaid Jeremias Singson. The Philippines is regularly hit by earthquakes due to its position on the “Ring of fire“, an arc of intense seismic activity that circles the Pacific Ocean through Japan and Southeast Asia. Wednesday’s earthquake is the most powerful in this country for several years. In October 2013, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake on the island of Bohol in the central Philippines left more than 200 dead and 400,000 displaced. In 1990, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the north of this country killed more than 1,200 people, caused extensive damage in Manila and broke the ground over more than a hundred kilometres.
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