Panic, worry in Mati City after second quake; a magnitude 6.9 hits hours after a 7.4
MATI CITY (MindaNews / 11 October) – Around two kilometers away from the coast, 48-year-old George Apsay and his family of at least 10 relatives trooped to a nearby higher place.
“We usually come here when there are evacuations like this,” Apsay told MindaNews.
“Here” is a portion of the Diversion Road in Madang, Central, in a place called Golden Valley.
If it were not dark, no streetlights, and the only luminance coming from oncoming traffic, this area would be overlooking Madang and the rest of Mati.
Apsay said he managed to take a tarp, enough to fit his family huddling in the dark, as they joined a growing line of around a hundred vehicles, from bao-bao (tuktuk) to SUV.
“We’re probably going to sleep here tonight,” he said.
Asked what else he was able to take, Apsay said their family just managed to take the tarp and a few belongings.
No foams, no pillows and blankets.
Apsay said they intend to wait it out first before deciding to come home to their house in Purok Manggahan, Lower Lemente, Barangay Central.
At a Shell Station in Madang, in Central, Rodel Tanio, 41, was among the scores of motorists lining up to gas up.
He said 150 pesos worth of fuel would last him the entire day.
When the first quake struck, Tanio was at his job at the NCCC as a promo-diser. But he said the store immediately closed and he went home to his family in Barangay Tamisan.
As others fell in line at the gas station, a young man in a sando held a half cut softdrink bottle.
“I just need 50 pesos, sir,” he told MindaNews in Cebuano. The staff, understanding the situation, pumped the nozzle, with the young man paying him in coins.
Outside the gas station, Jean Guiao, 40, waits for two motorcycles her family was filling up with fuel.
There were at least five of them headed to a nearby evacuation center.
A few of them approach, some carrying pillows.
The family plans to spend the night at the oval, the nearest sports complex.
Asked why they delayed evacuating to the center, Apsay said he was concerned about the number of people in the area.
At the Dahican Barangay Gym, scores of families lined up to get counted by barangay and city officials.
Mohaimen Sangco, 31, said his family finally decided to evacuate at the second earthquake.
It was scarier. It was nighttime, the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that hit nearby at 7:12 p.m. also led to a tsunami warning.
Sangco evacuated from his home in Purok Lahusan in Barangay Dahican along with his wife, two children, a cousin, and two seniors.
“We’re staying here until tomorrow,” he said in Cebuano. “Dili mi mag kompyansa (We won’t leave things to chance).”
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology had earlier issued a tsunami warning after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit Manay, Davao Oriental Friday night.
It was the second temblor to rock Manay after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the same area on Friday morning.
The tremor which occurred at 7:12 p.m. on Friday was located 36 kilometers southeast offshore of Manay with a depth of 10 kilometers.
Residents in the coastal areas of Davao Oriental, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur were “strongly advised” to evacuate to higher grounds or move farther inland.
Phivolcs forecast that the first tsunami waves, expected to be more than one meter above the normal tides, will arrive between 7:12 and 9:12 pm Friday. “The waves may continue for hours,” it added.
Phivolcs also issued a tsunami warning after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake but called it off after a few hours. (Yas D. Ocampo/MindaNews)
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