A massive magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Mindanao island in the Philippines on Monday morning, leaving at least 32 people dead and over 100 injured. The powerful tremor, which occurred just before 7:40 AM local time (23:40 GMT, Sunday) according to the United States Geological Survey, also triggered widespread tsunami alerts across Asia.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) reported that the initial quake was followed by more than an hour of aftershocks.
The southern city of General Santos, home to 722,000 residents, bore the brunt of the destruction. PHIVOLCS categorized the shaking there as “very strong” on its internal intensity scale.
Footage shared on official social media channels captured the terrifying moment a three-story building housing a Jollibee restaurant collapsed into a cloud of dust and debris. Elsewhere in the city, images revealed caved-in roofs and shattered windows.
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The chaos forced emergency evacuations at a major medical facility. Police spokesperson Robert Dagun told a local radio station that parts of the city’s St. Elizabeth Hospital were severely damaged, forcing patients and medical personnel to evacuate and temporarily operate outside the main hospital building.
Eyewitnesses described a scene of sheer panic. Mary Ann Blanco Rhudy, a Catholic nun working for Notre Dame of Dadiangas University, was commuting to the campus when the earthquake hit.
“The cars on the road were moving erratically. I am lucky that they didn’t crash against each other,” she told Al Jazeera. “The trees on the side of the road were also swaying violently.”
Rhudy added that several buildings on the university’s campus suffered partial collapses.
The disaster struck on what was supposed to be the first day of the school year. According to the state-run Philippine News Agency, the earthquake disrupted the academic calendar for 3.2 million students and 128,000 teachers and personnel.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that emergency agencies, including the Office of Civil Defence and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, have been fully activated. He also ordered an immediate shutdown of schools in the hard-hit regions.
“The safety of our children comes first,” Marcos said.
The quake triggered ocean warnings across the region. While authorities in the Philippines and Indonesia initially issued tsunami warnings, they have since been cancelled.
However, a tsunami advisory remains active along Japan’s southern coast and outlying islands, where officials are urging residents to stay away from coastal areas and river mouths until further notice.
