Quake toll rises to 9

THE death toll from the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that shook southern Mindanao on November 17 rose to nine, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said on Monday.

NDRRMC Deputy Spokesman Mark Timbal said that eight of the reported fatalities were in Region 12 (Soccsksargen) and one in Region 11 (Davao Region).

He said 11 of those injured were also from Soccsksargen and four from Davao Region.

The earthquake affected 2,489 families, or 12,885 individuals, from 43 villages.

A total of 826 houses were reported damaged and 118 infrastructures, most of which were schools and government facilities. The NDRRMC said only 48 percent of roads and bridges in the two affected regions were passable to vehicles.

The death toll steadily rose over the weekend as searchers found more bodies buried under rubble or soil. Search operations have largely ended, but the disaster agency said it was still receiving data from some of the dozens of villages affected by the earthquake.

«I'm hoping to God that our death toll won't go up anymore, but we're still waiting for the information coming from the regions,» Timbal said.

The state seismology service said the quake was likely generated by the movement of the earth's crust along the Cotabato trench, a long, narrow depression on the seafloor that forms the boundary of one tectonic plate pushing against another.

Quakes are frequent in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific «Ring of Fire,» an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans.

WITH AFP