INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Classes in eight earthquake-hit areas in the Visayas were canceled on Wednesday, the Department of Education said.
Jocelyn So, representative of the DepEd at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council briefing, said these areas were Cebu province, Cebu City, Bohol, Tagbilaran City, Dumaguete City, Iloilo, Siquijor and Mandaue City.
About 4,000 schools have called off classes in the region- 3,287 elementary schools and 795 secondary schools. The 2,719 schools are located in Bohol and Cebu. There are 1,338,472 elementary students and 706,018 high school students in the earthquake-hit areas.
Engineers were deployed to assess the safety of the school buildings and surrounding infrastructures, authorities said.
The DepEd representative said it would announce later in the day when classes would resume.
In Mandaue City, 95 percent of schools were inspected and declared safe.
A classroom in Cancatac Elementary School in Corella town in Bohol collapsed. At Dr. C. Putong High School, also in Bohol, a two-storey building with eight classrooms was declared unsafe. An audio visual hall incurred P12-million worth of damage.
At Silay North Elementary School in Negros Occidental, a building was in danger of collapsing.
A few more schools in Bohol and Cebu also suffered minor cracks in their infrastructures.
Bohol has 930 elementary schools and 161 secondary schools.