LAST UPDATE | 1 Oct

THE DEATH TOLL from a powerful earthquake that shook the Philippines yesterday has risen to at least 69, although the full toll is not yet known and the situation remains “fluid”, according to local authorities. 

Injured patients have overwhelmed hospitals on the island of Cebu in the centre of the country as rescuers continue to search the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors. 

Injured children cried and adults screamed while being treated on beds beneath blue tents outside the Cebu Provincial Hospital today, having been wheeled out as a precaution against waves of aftershocks overnight.

The shallow magnitude 6.9 quake struck late yesterday off Cebu island’s northern end near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Others were not so fortunate. AFP journalists saw hospital workers loading black body bags into vans taking the dead to local mortuaries.

“We are receiving additional numbers of reported casualties so this thing is very fluid,” Office of Civil Defence deputy administrator Rafaelito Alejandro told reporters in Manila earlier today. 

“Many of them were pinned down by debris, which caused their death,” he said, putting the updated death toll at 69.

The death toll in Bogo is expected to rise, according to officials, who said intermittent rain and damaged bridges and roads were hampering the race to save lives.

The Philippine government is considering whether to seek help from foreign governments based on an ongoing rapid damage assessment, officials said.

‘As if the Earth stopped spinning’ 

Richard Guion, his left elbow heavily bandaged, recounted how he and his wife, who broke her foot, were dug out from under the collapsed concrete wall of their home by their 17-year-old son, who had been playing outside when the quake struck.

“When the cement collapsed, I called out to him,” said the 39-year-old Guion, thankful his son ignored his earlier order to go to bed early.

Rescuer Teddy Fontillas, 56, told AFP he had not slept a wink as he helped transfer the injured to other hospitals because the one in Bogo was already overflowing.

“I’m already struggling, but what we are doing is necessary to help our patients,” he added.

Elsewhere in Bogo, firemen used excavators to drill holes into the collapsed heap of a two-storey motel, where two receptionists and a child were feared trapped beneath debris.

“We cannot give up even if we have been searching for around five hours now,” fireman Erwin Castaneda told AFP, adding: “We are talking about lives here. We will do everything that we can.”

“I offer my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families,” President Ferdinand Marcos said in a statement in which he pledged swift aid.

Dramatic footage filmed by residents and widely shared on social media showed an old Catholic church on Bantayan island near Cebu adorned with a string of light bulbs swaying wildly shortly before its bell tower tumbled into the courtyard.

Local television showed riders dismounting from their motorcycles and holding onto the railings as a Cebu bridge violently rocked.

In Cebu city, 100 kilometres to the south, online shoe merchant Jayford Maranga, said he hid under a restaurant table to avoid the collapsing metal ceiling of a shopping mall.

“My friend and I ate at the food court near closing time, and then, bang! It was as if the Earth stopped spinning. And then the mall started shaking,” 21-year-old Maranga told AFP, adding his friend was slightly injured.

The Cebu provincial government has put out a call on its official Facebook page for medical volunteers to assist in the aftermath of the quake.

A number of village roads also sustained damage. In Tabogon town, the road was riddled with five-centimetre cracks, AFP journalists saw.

Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans, but strong and destructive ones come at random, with no technology available to predict when and where they might strike.