Search Underway After Powerful Cebu Quake

BOGO, Philippines — A desperate search for survivors continued in the central Philippines on Wednesday, a day after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake claimed at least 69 lives and injured over 200 others. 

Rescuers deployed backhoes and sniffer dogs to scour the ruins of collapsed homes and damaged structures across the hard-hit city of Bogo and surrounding towns in Cebu province. Officials expect the death toll to climb, as an unknown number of residents remain trapped following the 10 p.m. Tuesday tremor. 

The race to save lives has been severely hampered by sporadic rain and damage to key bridges and roads. In Bogo city late Wednesday, teams used spotlights, heavy machinery, and their bare hands to search the tangled metal and broken concrete for a long period.

"We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue," said Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defense, noting many reports of people being "pinned or hit by debris." 

The shallow quake, caused by an undersea fault only 5 kilometers (3 miles) deep, was centered about 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of 90,000 where roughly half of the confirmed fatalities occurred. Read more → https://apnews.com/article/philippines-earthquake-bogo-cebu-daanbantayan-85978d3037b4a32bc78189ba2be0f25e