Tsunami rumor sparks panic in Cebu City streets

It was a Monday I couldn’t forget. I was shaken up by the strong earthquake before noon. I was scared out of my wits when I later saw a panicked crowd fleeing from an imagined tsunami at the downtown area.

At past 1 p.m., I was heading for work from the Osmeña Boulevard area where I’m staying when I saw  a throng of people rushing from the downtown area heading uptown.

They were scared and brought with them a message that many of us dread: a tsunami is coming.

This happened after an earthquake registering a 6.9-magnitude on the Richter Scale rattled Cebu, Negros and Bohol at 11:49 a.m.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) later  issued a tsunami alert level 2 for Cebu and Negros.

At the Fuente Osmeña area, it took only a few minutes for the panicked group of people to be followed by more panicked people rushing uptown— filling major streets of Cebu City such as the Osmeña Boulevard. The traffic went haywire as the rushing crowd occupied the streets. The fear spread as tsunami rumors were passed on among the panicked crowd.

Residents got out of their houses, some carrying whatever belongings they could handle. Others had themselves and their families as they too joined the rush uptown to higher ground.

Some families with their little children were huddled on the roadsides while other parents were tugging their crying children as they flee away from the downtown area.

Students, whose classes were cancelled after the earthquake, also rushed out of their campuses, running in their uniforms. Other students took off their heeled footwear so they could move faster.

A small store near Abellana National School was swarmed with people for cell phone load.

Almost everyone was calling or texting while rushing through the crowd.

Everything seemed out of control as people were trying to find higher ground.

Evelyn Mendoza, 53, a resident at Gotianuy Compound, Jones Avenue, said she was about to take her lunch at an eatery at Urgello when she noticed a commotion—a throng of people running and telling everyone that the waters had risen.

She said she just joined the crowd although she wasn’t sure if the information was true.

But she said she just ran fearing the information might be true since an earthquake earlier happened that morning.

“Nagdinaganay naman, apil mga estudyante. Ang uban nagtiniil na lang gud. Tsunami baya, kinsay dili mahadlok ana,” Mendoza said.

“Nagkurog pa akong tuhod hangtod karon,” she added later.

She said that when the earthquake happened, she was at Elizabeth Mall waiting for a relative.

Everyone in the building rushed out to safety, where she herself took the wrong escalator due to panic according to her.

“Adto ko sa pasaka na escalator. Bahala na, milayat na lang jd ko,” she exclaimed.

Classes at the University of San Carlos P. del Rosario were suspended after the earthquake.

Hyacinth Aranas, a staff nurse of Cebu Doctors’ Hospital, said that she was taking her lunch with some workmates at an eatery near the hospital when people were running and shouting that the waters have reached Abellana.

“Kalit lang nanagan tanan tao. Naa na daw ang tsunami sa Abellana. So nanagan pud mi padung sa Opra,” she said.

The panicked crowd on the streets only calmed down after Police Supt. Tito Satira, Police Regional Office community relations chief, spoke through a loudspeaker outside his office at Jones Avenue informing them that the tsunami rumor was a “false alarm.”

Satira warned people to check if they might be victims of theft and urged them to return home.

“Dili tinuod na naay tsunami. False alarm kana. Busa pamalik namu sa inyung mga balay kay tig lahi na ang namuyo run adto,” he said.

Also earlier, firefighters in a fire truck went around the area announcing to the panicked crowd that the rumor wasn’t true.