By:
Ronnel W. Domingo - 07:30 AM July 08, 2017
Energy officials on
Friday said that the power outage in the provinces of Bohol, Samar, Biliran and
Southern Leyte and parts of Leyte might last for a week or two after Thursday’s
powerful earthquake rocked Eastern Visayas.
The 6.5-magnitude
quake near Kananga town and centered northeast of Ormoc City cracked buildings,
roads and the city’s airport runway, killing at least two people and injuring
scores of others.
The National Grid Corp.
of the Philippines (NGCP) said the islands of Cebu, Negros, and Panay “may also
suffer occasional” service interruptions because the power plants in Leyte had
been shut down for damage assessment.
The Department of
Energy said all generating units of the Unified Leyte Geothermal Power complex
operated by Energy Development Corp. (EDC), which accounts for close to 600
megawatts, had tripped due to the temblor.
The plants consisted of
the 125-MW Upper Mahiao, 232.5-MW Malitbog, 180-MW Mahanagdong and 51-MW
Optimization plants. They were providing about 460 megawatts when the quake struck,
EDC said in a statement.
Volatile demand
“For now, all of the plants are shut down and
we are evaluating the damage,” it said.
The P112.5-MW
Palinpinon 1 and the 60-MW Palinpinon 2 plants in Negros, operated by EDC unit
Green Core Geothermal Inc. also tripped.
Energy Secretary
Alfonso G. Cusi said the epicenter was near the geothermal fields that feed
EDC’s 112.5-MW Tongonan power plant.
Cusi said the power
situation in the affected provinces “may still change because of the volatility
of the demand by the hour and the loss of the generating capacity of affected
geothermal plants.”
NGCP spokesperson
Cynthia Alabanza said Tower No. 18 of the 138-kilovolt Ormoc-Tongonan line,
which connected the Tongonan power plant to the Ormoc substation, was left
leaning by the quake, but workers were able to prevent its high voltage lines
from touching the ground.
She said the
Ormoc-Tongonan line could still deliver electricity to Ormoc but this could not
be done until the Kananga Switchyard was restored by the EDC.
Work to restore power
was being hampered by aftershocks, officials said. More than 240 of them had
been recorded early on Friday, disaster officials said.
Ormoc officials on
Friday appealed for food and water, especially for 20 barangays that were badly
affected by the earthquake, which injured 170 people in the city.
Mayor Richard Gomez
said generators were needed to run pumps to draw water from wells since river
and spring waters had become muddy after the quake.
No water
Bohol residents also
complained they had no water.
“We don’t have power.
We don’t have water. Where will we turn to?” said Anabelle Magoncia, 45, a
resident of Ubujan District.
Bohol Light advised the
public to conserve batteries and water.
“Power restoration for
Bohol may take long. Please take precautions to prevent fire, conserve water
and remove plugs from outlets,” it said.
Gomez said the
earthquake triggered landslides in the barangays of Cabaon-an, Cabintan, Tongonan
and Gaas.
A 19-year-old mother,
Rhissa Rosales, was killed when she was hit by debris in Cabaon-an. Her
6-month-old baby survived.
At least 37 people were
wounded and two school buildings in Barangays Lim-au and Rizal were damaged in
Kananga.
The lone fatality in
Kananga, Jerry Novilla, 42, died when a three-story building collapsed. He was
among 60 beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program attending a
seminar for prospective security guards.
Among those in the
building who survived was Nerissa Superales, 40, a cashier in New Town Grocery,
who said presence of mind and prayers kept her alive.
“I was not scared. All
I could think about at that time was my family,” she told the Inquirer shortly
after she was rescued late on Thursday night.
‘Prayed and prayed’
“I didn’t panic. I just
prayed and prayed. I asked God that if this was how my life would end, I would
accept it but please take care of my family,” she said.
After hours of digging,
workers rescued Superales and five others—Jenny Omolon, 38, her daughter Aina
Nicole, 7, and son Sancho, 4; Irene Flores, 31 and Edgar Cabahug, 46.
Omolon and her children
were buying groceries while Flores and Cabahug were making deliveries to the
store.
Superales said she
immediately headed for the door when the shaking began. She was about three
meters away when a pile of milk tumbled and the glass door crashed in front of
her, plunging the place into darkness.
She could hear Omolon,
whom she personally knew from a neighboring barangay.
“It was dark. There was
no air. It was so hot,” she said. “I knew she was near but couldn’t see her
because it was dark and there was debris between us.”
Superales told Omolon
to try to get her phone inside her bag near her cash register. Omolon got hold
of it and Superales told her to call her brother, PO2 Rodel Superales, to ask
for help.
Investigation
Superales relayed
instructions to rescuers on how to find them through Omolon until they finally
dug a hole through the debris and pulled her and the others out of the rubble.
“It was God’s will that
I survived. Maybe he still has plans for me. Whatever his plans are, I still
don’t know,” said Superales, the eldest of five siblings.
Kananga Mayor Rowena
Codilla said an investigation would be conducted to determine why the building,
built in 2006, was not able to withstand the quake.
The building housed a
grocery and hardware store on the ground floor, a small hotel on the second
floor and a roof deck on the third floor.
When the quake struck
at 4:06 p.m. on Thursday, most of the people were able to run outside moments
before the building collapsed.
Fatima Monarez, who
worked at a lotto outlet on the ground floor, wept as she recounted how she
crawled toward the door of the grocery with Daya Ty, daughter of the building
owner, Gil Ty.
Building crumbles
After they were able to
get out, both were shocked to see the building crumble before their eyes.
The Kananga municipal
council had declared a state of calamity to allow the town to access funds to
aid the victims.
Leyte Gov. Leopoldo
Dominico Petilla suspended all classes in all levels in the province to allow
authorities to inspect all school buildings for any possible damage.
The earthquake had a
relatively shallow depth, which often can cause greater surface damage. The US
Geological Survey measured it at 6.5 kilometers deep while the Philippine
Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it was 2 kilometers and caused by
movement of the Philippine Fault.
“The center of the
earthquake was in mountainous villages so we will only get a clearer picture of
the impact once we reach these areas,” said Mina Marasigan, spokesperson for
the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The quake struck in a
region that was devastated in 2013 by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international
name: Haiyan), which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing.
The Philippines sits
on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanoes are common. A
7.7-magnitude quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the north in 1990.
—WITH REPORTS FROM CONNIE FERNANDEZ, ROBERT DEJON, JOEY A. GABIETA, VICKY
ARNAIZ, LEO UDTOHAN, AP AND AFP
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