Pasig building shows crack; tremors scare homeowners

Residents of a local government housing project in Pasig City fear for the condition of their 10-story building, after they were roused from sleep and thrown into panic by tremors in the wee hours of Friday.

The homeowners rushed out of their units thinking there was an earthquake, but later discovered that the vibrations were apparently due to a landslide at a neighboring construction site in Barangay Manggahan.

The Pasig City Command Center said about a hundred residents of Cattleya Building, which is part of Eusebio Bliss Village on Kaayusan Road, went out after feeling the tremors around 2 a.m.

No injuries were reported but a number of residents were still afraid to return to the building as dawn broke.

A Radyo Inquirer report said the residents also discovered a huge crack on the ground floor of Cattleya. The building is only about a year old and hosts 280 families.

The city engineer’s office later discovered that chunks of earth and concrete had broken loose at the excavation site for another building currently under construction a few meters away from Cattleya.

The landslide caused steel bars that form part of the new building’s foundations to bend. Nathaniel R. Melican and Louie Garcia, Radyo Inquirer