CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (Provincial Legistative Board) on Tuesday declared Pampanga under a state of calamity to enable the province and the people to immediately rebuild after the 6.1-magnitude earthquake last Monday, Vice Governor Dennis Pineda said.
The United States Geological Survey located the epicenter of the tremor to be 1 km away from Gutad, Floridablanca. The tremor, which struck at 5:11 p.m. claimed 10 lives, damaged not less than 10 churches and caused cracks on the lahar-catchment FVR Megadike.
The damages on public infrastructure and private properties continued to be assessed, he said. Pineda, vice chair of the Pampanga Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO), said he also asked the mayors of Apalit, Sto. Tomas and Guagua to order the temporary closure of Chuzon Supermarket branches in those town to give way to structural assessments, with people’s safety being the priority.
The Chuzon branch in Porac, which was 4-storey high, collapsed shortly after the tremor. Rescuers have retrieved in Chuzon the bodies of 4 dead workers and 8 injured workers as of Tuesday morning, according to Pineda who supervised rescue operations at the site until 5 a.m. on Tuesday.
“We cannot account for all the more than 90 Chuzon workers. We have no information if they managed to run to safety or if they were trapped in the rubbles.
We advised the management to make the survivors or their relatives report their situation until a full accounting of people is done,” he said.
The vice governor also thanked several companies and persons for helping respond to the disaster by lending equipment like cranes and giving food supplies. They include the Leadway Construction, Mr. Kim, Board Member Dinan Labung, Angeles Electric Company, North Luzon Expressway, Sen. Richard Gordon and the Philippine Red Cross and Bataan Gov. Albert Garcia. “Taos-puso ho ang pasasalamat namin si Governor Pineda sa inyong pagtulong sa aming mga kababayan,” he said.