“Outpatients” get new meaning at Batangas Medical Center after the magnitude 6 earthquake that struck the province on Saturday. KRISTINE DE VERA/CONTRIBUTOR
Lucena City – After a swarm of earthquakes rocked parts of Southern Luzon on Saturday, more than 5,500 individuals were evacuated in different towns in Batangas province, a disaster official in the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon (Calabarzon) region said Sunday.
Olivia Luces, Calabarzon-Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC) director, said over 2,000 residents of Mabini town evacuated to the area fronting the municipal hall. The quake was felt the strongest in Mabini at intensity 7.
At least 3,000 were also evacuated to 11 temporary shelters in Batangas City.
Still undetermined numbers of evacuees were reported in the towns of Bauan, Taal, Tingloy, San Pascual, Agoncillo, San Luis and Lipa City. No casualty was reported.
The first 5.7-magnitude temblor struck at 3:08 p.m. in Mabini town of Batangas, followed by the 5.9-magnitude quake just a minute later, their epicenters within a few kilometers of each other, according to US geologists. The same area was hit by a 5-magnitude quake after another 20 minutes.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) later reported different readings, but putting the strongest temblor at a magnitude of 6. The quake was followed by three weaker quakes with magnitudes 3.5 to 4.7.
The series of temblors was caused by tectonic in origin and caused by the movement of a local fault, said Renato Solidum, Phivolcs head.
“We can call this an earthquake swarm,” Solidum said in a television interview.
Swarms are events where a local area is hit by a sequence of many quakes in a relative short period of time.
“Swarms” differ from earthquakes succeeded by a series of aftershocks because no single earthquake in the sequence is considered the main shock.
“This is tectonic in origin, caused by the movement of a local, unnamed fault between the towns of Tingloy and Mabini,” he said.
The movement was felt in varying intensities in about 40 towns in Batangas, Laguna, Cavite and Quezon and in metropolitan Manila. As of 4:43 p.m. nearly 800 small aftershocks were recorded, but they were too weak to trigger any tsunamis or damage.
Power was cut off but was immediately restored in affected areas, but centuries-old churches and some establishments in Batangas sustained minor damage, including the fire station in the city, disaster relief officials said.