Aftershocks rock Philippine earthquake city survivors

Thousands of residents of a earthquake-hit city in the southern Philippines sought refuge on the streets as aftershocks hit the region on Sunday.

Filipino villagers collect water in Surigao, Mindanao. Dozens of aftershocks continue to rattle the city since a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck the city on Friday, killing six. Cerilo Erbano / EPA

SURIGAO, PHILIPPINES // Thousands of residents of an earthquake-hit city in the southern Philippines sought refuge on the streets as aftershocks hit the region on Sunday.

The 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Surigao and nearby areas of Mindanao island late on Friday, killing six and injuring 202, with more than 1,000 homes destroyed or damaged, according to officials.

People who had fled their damaged homes wrapped themselves in blankets and sacks for a second night as they slept side-by-side on the pavement on Saturday.

The state seismology office recorded 130 tremors in Surigao, a city of 152,000 people, and in the predominantly agricultural region around it since the earthquake struck, although there were no additional reports of casualties or damage.

“The people are terrified about the aftershocks,” said Romina Marasigan, spokeswoman for the government’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

“This was the first time Surigao had suffered a quake this strong. The previous one occurred in the 1800s,” said president Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar, a native of the region.

Mr Duterte flew to the region on Sunday to inspect the response effort, which officials said had shifted to relief and rehabilitation after the last of the dead and injured were pulled from the rubble.

He was accompanied by a military transport plane loaded with generator sets, solar lamps, high-energy biscuits, mosquito nets and blankets for displaced residents, Ms Marasigan said.

Early on Sunday, long lines of people carrying pails and jugs queued for water rations supplied by fire lorries after the earthquake cut off tap water supply.

“We’re still being hit by aftershocks, and as of now we do not have tap water supply. The people are suffering,” provincial information officer Mary Escalante told ABS-CBN television.

“Buildings that suffered structural damage have been closed,” she said, adding some schools and gyms that were meant to serve as evacuation centres were among those damaged by the quake.

The earthquake also damaged bridges and roads and knocked out the power supply, though electricity was restored in most of Surigao on Saturday.

An average of five earthquakes, most of them undetectable except through instruments, hit daily across the Philippines.

The last deadly earthquake that hit the country measured 7.1-magnitude. It left more than 220 people dead and destroyed historic churches when it struck the central islands in October 2013.

* Agence France-Presse