A powerful magnitude‑7.8 earthquake struck the southern Philippines’s Mindanao island on Monday morning, sending tremors across the region that have kept the communities on edge for the past 24 hours. The quake was linked to movement along the Cotabato Trench, a fault line that has produced historic shudders such as the 7.9‑magnitude quake in 1976, which triggered a deadly tsunami that killed about 5,000 people.
Local officials now report a death toll of 37 and 487 injuries – a figure that is expected to rise as aftershocks continue. The 73‑year‑old quake has triggered dense debris fields with hundreds of subsequent shakes, many of them strong enough to damage structures. Buildings have collapsed, roads are cracked or buried in landslides, and large swaths of the island still lack electricity or telephone connectivity.
“Our priority today is search and rescue,” said Bernardo Alejandro, assistant secretary of the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, as he spoke into DZMM Radio. “We hope the death toll does not increase further, but we are expecting it to move.”
The seismic event knocked down about 2,000 homes and damaged roughly 6,000 public schools, according to preliminary estimates. Schoolchildren at the epicenter were lucky enough to be out on morning assembly, where they had spent the day with the roof on top of the buildings. One science minister, Renato Solidum, said “being outside allowed the students to remain calm, which saved many lives.”
Residents have seen the ground violently rise, with some describing the shaking as a “hammock” that lasted over two minutes. “Everyone felt dizzy. Our students were shouting and crying while we had to calm them down. And it was thousands of students,” recounted public school teacher Cesar Sundo of Lebak town.
Aftershocks caused wide damage to infrastructure. In the coastal town of General Santos City, a Jollibee restaurant collapsed, a sequence that the chain later confirmed all its staff in the earthquake‑affected area were safe.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has mobilised the entire government machinery to respond to the disaster. His transportation and health secretaries flew to Mindanao from Manila to supervise the ongoing response. Access remains difficult in towns such as Jose Abad Santos in Davao Occidental, where landslides have buried highways and half of the town is only reachable by foot or by air.
Relief goods are being flown in to remote barangays. “We’re sending aid by air where we can’t reach the road,” Mayor Jason John Joyce told DZMM. Relief teams are also facing aftershocks while treating the injured, further complicating rescue efforts.
As the nation endures this seismic catastrophe, warnings continue to be sounded globally, with tsunami alerts issued in Indonesia, south of Mindanao and across Japan’s Pacific coast. Authorities are poised to offer assistance to the millions displaced and the countless lives affected by this natural disaster.
