Woman tells how she survived for several hours trapped in collapsed building

Jenny Omolon is attended to at the Ormoc District Hospital where she and her children were brought following their rescue. -Vicky Arnaiz, Inquirer Visayas

KANANGA, Leyte – Presence of mind and lots of prayers.

These helped Nerissa Superales survive after being trapped in the collapsed three-story building in Barangay Poblacion, here following the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that rocked Leyte on Thursday afternoon.

“I was not scared. All I could think about at that time was my family,” Superales told the Inquirer shortly after she was rescued on Thursday night.

“I didn’t panic. I just prayed and prayed (while waiting to be rescued). I asked God that if this was how my life would end, I would accept it but please take care of my family,” she added.

Superales, a cashier of New Town Grocery, was among the six persons who were pulled out by rescuers from the debris on Thursday night after more than four hours of being trapped.

The five others were Jenny Omolon, 38 and daughter Aina Nicole, 7 and son Sancho, 4; Irene Flores, 31 and Edgar Cabahug, 46.

Superales and the Omolons were rescued at 8 p.m. while Cabahug and Flores were pulled out more than two hours later.

Omolon and her children were in the grocery to buy some items while Flores and Cabahug were there to make a delivery.

One person was not as lucky.

The lone fatality was Jerry Novilla, 42, one of the 60 beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program attending a seminar inside the function room to prepare them for their job as security guards of a department store.

Mayor Rowena Codilla of Kananga said an investigation would be conducted to determine if the building was not able to withstand the quake because it was poorly constructed.

Three-story commercial establishment was built only in 2006, according to the mayor.

A grocery and hardware occupied the ground floor, a small hotel on the second floor and a roof deck on the third floor.

When earthquake struck at 4:06 p.m. on Thursday, people managed to run outside the building. A few seconds later, the building collapsed.

Fatima Monarez, who worked in a lotto outlet on the ground floor of the building, cried as she recounted how she crawled toward the door of the grocery with Daya Ty, daughter of the building owner Gil Ty, because the ground was shaking fast.

After they were able to get out, both were shocked to see the building crumpled before their eyes.

The ground floor was almost flattened while the second floor was only less than a meter away from the ground.

Superales recalled that she was conducting an inventory when she felt the earth shook.

She ran toward the door but she was just at least three meters away when a pile of milk cans tumbled and the glass door crashed in front of her.

“It was the last time I saw the light,” Superales said.

She squatted with her back curled tight that her knees and her chin had touched. She just stayed beside an ice cream freezer and a pile of three cases of Coke 1.5 liters.

Although it was so dark, she managed to get hold of a chair and stepped on it to reach the ceiling on top of her.

She managed to get her through the crack on the ceiling only to touch what appeared to be a wall of cement.

Not too far from her was a woman screaming for help.

Omolon and her children crawled toward the light, which they thought at first was the exit.

To their dismay, the light came from the POS machine at the cashier’s area.

It was Superales’ work station.

She knew Omolon because they lived in neighboring barangays.

“It was dark. There was no air. It was so hot,” she said. “I knew she was near but couldn’t see her because it was dark and there were debris between us.”

Superales instructed the woman to check if she could see a green bag near the POS machine.

When she replied in the affirmative, Superales told Omolon to call her brother, PO2 Rodel Superales, and ask for help.

“I dictated to her what to tell my brother,” she said.

The policeman was able to help the rescuers pinpoint where to drill a hole to get them out.

At one point, she had to ask the rescuers to stop because they were drilling just right above her head.

“I asked Omolon to tell my brother that they were drilling near my head,” she added.

Still, she used the opportunity to help the rescuers pinpoint where to drill.

She grabbed a molding tape and pushed it through the hole drilled by the rescuers.

During the four-hour ordeal, Superales and Omolon just prayed.

And her prayers were answered.

“It was God’s will that I survived. Maybe He still has plans for me. Whatever His plans are, I still don’t know,” said Superales, the eldest of five siblings.

Now that she survived, her mother wanted her to just stay home in Barangay Hiluctogan and help out in their small business. With a report from Vicky Arnaiz and Joey A. Gabieta, Inquirer Visayas