Rescuers end search, focus on retrieval, relief work

SILENCED The old bell of Baclayon Church hangs forlornly and precariously on the side of the broken belfry in this photo taken on Friday. It reminds us of the interconnectedness of humanity explored by the great English poet John Donne in his piece “For Whom The Bell Tolls” from “Meditation 17” of “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions”. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Rescuers on Saturday called off the search for survivors of the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Central Visayas on Tuesday, killing at least 180 people and displacing nearly 400,000 others.

“The rescue operations have ended and instead we are now conducting recovery operations,” said Eduardo del Rosario, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

“We are still looking for 12 others. Our responders are now on site to recover their bodies,” Del Rosario told a news conference.

Del Rosario said the council decided to end the search for survivors after a consultation with rescuers and provincial disaster officials in the region.

The earthquake destroyed or damaged more than 34,000 homes and centuries-old churches in the region, with the tourist island of Bohol, the epicenter of the temblor, suffering the worst damage.

Body bags

NDRRMC spokesperson Maj. Reynaldo Balido Jr. said the Bureau of Fire Protection would send body bags to Bohol.

Balido said it was unlikely survivors would be found five days after the earthquake.

“There are already reports of stench [in devastated areas],” Balido said.

The death toll climbed to 180 yesterday, according to combined information from the NDRRMC and the Bohol provincial police.

Of the dead, 167 were reported in Bohol, 12 in the nearby island of Cebu and 1 in Siquijor.

Six more bodies were recovered in Loon town and another in the municipality of Clarin, both in Bohol.

As of Saturday, the death toll in Bohol stood at 56 in Loon, 5 in Clarin, 2 in Jetafe, 2 in Buenavista, 5 in Calape, 7 in Tubigon, 5 in Balilihan, 4 in Inabanga, 1 in Batuan, 15 in Sagbayan, 1 in Baclayon, 4 in the capital Tagbilaran City, 2 in Loay; 2 in Alburquerque, 15 in Maribojoc, 6 in Bilar, 6 in Cortes, 5 in Catigbian, 13 in Antequera, 10 in San Isidro, 1 in Talibon, 1 in Trinidad, 2 in Danao, 1 in Sierra Bullones and 1 in Sevilla.

In Talisay City, Cebu province, the latest fatality reported on Friday was a man who was thrown off his motorcycle as the road shook.

Missing

All 12 missing are from Bohol, including the five children who were playing by a waterfall in Sagbayan town when the earthquake struck. Six of the missing are from Loon and one is from Clarin.

The number of the injured rose to 522 yesterday, 431 of them in Bohol, 89 in Cebu, 1 in Iloilo and 1 in Negros Oriental.

The NDRRMC said the quake displaced nearly 400,000 people. Many are still in makeshift tents, terrorized by aftershocks and unwilling to return home.

About 109,000 people are sheltering in government-run evacuation centers in Bohol and Cebu.

President Aquino, back in Malacañang after a two-day trip to South Korea, ordered his Cabinet to begin the rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure and intensify relief operations to help the survivors and the displaced.

Speed up relief

In a brief arrival statement, Mr. Aquino said that if South Korea could rise from destruction caused by war in the 1950s to become a prosperous industrialized country, so could the Philippines.

In effect, Mr. Aquino was saying Central Visayas could rise from the tragedy of the Oct. 15 earthquake.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview on Saturday that the President had ordered Cabinet officials “to make sure that relief efforts in Bohol and Cebu are moving.”

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, Bohol Gov. Edgar Chatto and other provincial officials met again to make sure relief goods were reaching even isolated places, Valte said.

Valte said 10,000 food packages had reached nine of the 47 towns in Bohol and the capital Tagbilaran City. The towns finally reached by relief were Antequera, Calape, Carmen, Catigbian, Loon, Maribojoc, Panglao, San Isidro and Tubigon.

A statement from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said, however, that 19 towns and Tagbilaran City had received relief aid as of noon Saturday.

Valte could not say if relief had reached Danao, a fifth-class interior municipality 95 kilometers northeast of Tagbilaran City.

Hungry residents of Danao told journalists on Friday that they had yet to receive food and other aid from the DSWD.

Valte said 1,000 food packages and tents were to be sent to Tagbayan on Saturday.

Cebu as base

Relief operations picked up speed on Friday with the authorities’ decision to make Cebu the relief base instead of Manila, from which Philippine Air Force C-130 transport planes and Philippine Navy vessels had been ferrying the goods to Bohol.

Adding to the speed of relief delivery was the reopening of 11 national bridges in Bohol that were damaged by the earthquake.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said on Saturday that Camayaan Bridge, Tultogan Bridge, Bacong Bridge, Anislag Bridge and Daet Bridge, all located along Tagbilaran North Road, were now passable.

Five bridges along Tabilaran East Road were reopened after repairs. Passable again to light vehicles are Bonkokan Bridge, Banban Bridge, Balbalan Bridge, Panangatan Bridge and Agape Bridge along Loay Interior Road.

Camayaan Bridge along the Loboc interior road in Loon is also passable again, the DPWH said.

Evacuees

There are 90 evacuation centers in the quake-stricken region sheltering nearly 109,000 people.

Nearly 270,000 other displaced people are staying in makeshift tents outside the evacuation centers.

Of the evacuation centers, Bohol has 65, sheltering more than 103,000 people, with nearly 260,000 others staying in makeshift tents outside the evacuation camps.

Cebu has 25 evacuation centers sheltering more than 5,400 people, with more than 6,000 people staying in improvised shelters outside the evacuation centers.

Soliman gave assurance that the relief operations will continue until life in all the towns has returned to normal.

She said more than a hundred volunteers had been helping the DSWD pack relief goods since the earthquake struck on Tuesday.

Soliman thanked netizens for mobilizing support for the relief operations.

Neighboring countries have extended their sympathies to the Philippines for the death and destruction in Central Visayas.

Malaysian donation

Malaysia’s World Children Welfare Fund, an organization led by Rosmah Mansor, wife of Prime Minister Najib Razak, donated P1.4 million for the children affected by the earthquake in Bohol and Cebu.

The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said yesterday that Rosmah turned over the donation to Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Eduardo Malaya on Friday.

The World Children Welfare Fund provides aid to children caught in conflict and natural disasters around the world.

Malaysia’s volunteer relief organization Mercy Malaysia is also sending a five-member team to Cebu and Bohol tomorrow to help in emergency operations, with two more teams expected to follow soon, the embassy said.

Najib, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Toshinao Urabe have extended their sympathies and expressed solidarity with the Filipinos on behalf of their countries. With reports from Tina G. Santos, Cynthia D. Balana, Tarra Quismundo and AFP

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