Surigao City hit again by intensity 6 tremor

Workers at a soft drink warehouse in Surigao City remove broken bottles from cases toppled by an intensity 6 quake on Sunday that Phivolcs said was just an aftershock of the deadly Feb. 10 intensity 6.7 quake. —DANILO ADORADOR III

SURIGAO CITY—An elderly woman died of cardiac arrest following an intensity 6 earthquake that struck Surigao del Norte on Sunday morning.

Socorro Cenes, 65, of Surigao City, died during the earthquake, according to Nards Go of the city disaster risk reduction and management council.

Cenes was brought to Caraga Regional Hospital but was declared dead on arrival.

The quake came as the city still reels from the effects of an intensity 6.7 quake on Feb. 10 which killed six people and injured hundreds of others.

Go said officials were still assessing damage to infrastructure caused by the latest tremor.

The Sunday quake’s epicenter was 13 kilometers southwest of San Francisco town, and was also felt in the province of Leyte, according to the Philippine Institute for Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said intensity 6 was felt in Surigao City, where majority of the fatalities in the intensity 6.7 Feb. 10 earthquake came from.

Solidum said the Sunday tremor was considered an aftershock of the Feb. 10 quake.

Sunday’s aftershock was just among a series of tremors produced by the Feb. 10 quake.

When President Duterte came to visit the city to express solidarity with survivors two days after the quake, two aftershocks hit the city.

A resident, Rosalina Busano, 67, was among those stricken by fear when the aftershock struck.

She held a rosary in hand and prayed aloud as she and hundreds of other victims waited for the President at the city auditorium. —DANILO ADORADOR AND CHRIS PANGANIBAN