Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Rescuers carry a bag containing a dead body retrieved from an indoor arena in San Remigio town, Cebu province, central Philippines, on October 1, 2025, after a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake jolted the central Philippines, collapsing buildings and killing at least 26 people. The shallow quake struck at 9:50 pm (1359 GMT) on September 30 off the island's northern end near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Photo by Alan Tangcawan/AFP

Article (news)

Cebu

Rowegie Abanto

Jervis Manahan

ABS-CBN News

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759288263136555890420_1295861605922426_3246755469871274539_n.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Rescuers carry a bag containing a dead body retrieved from an indoor arena in San Remigio town, Cebu province, central Philippines, on October 1, 2025, after a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake jolted the central Philippines, collapsing buildings and killing at least 26 people. The shallow quake struck at 9:50 pm (1359 GMT) on September 30 off the island&#x27;s northern end near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Photo by Alan Tangcawan/AFP</span></span></span></div><div><br/></div><p>MANILA — Disaster authorities are now racing to save trapped residents in quake-hit Cebu province within the crucial 24 hours, the Office of Civil Defense said Wednesday.</p><p>The shallow earthquake struck at 9:59 p.m. on Tuesday in the waters off the northeastern part of Bogo City, where most of the dead bodies had been recovered, OCD Assistant Secretary Bernardo Alejandro told a news conference.</p><p>Authorities have been racing to save people from the rubble since the quake hit the epicenter of Bogo City on Tuesday night.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/regions/2025/10/1/cebu-quake-likely-triggered-by-fault-that-had-not-produced-powerful-tremor-in-past-400-years-1012">Cebu quake likely triggered by fault that had not produced powerful tremor in past 400 years</a></div><p>Alejandro stressed that search and rescue operations were ongoing as of Wednesday morning to extract people stuck in the rubble within the &quot;golden&quot; 24 hours — the crucial period in which individuals are likely to survive.</p><p>Quake victims trapped in damaged buildings can still survive beyond the said period, Alejandro said.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/regions/2025/9/30/magnitude-6-7-earthquake-jolts-cebu-2216">Magnitude 6.9 earthquake shakes Cebu; death toll rises above 30</a></div><p>Some barangays called for assistance &quot;in terms of rescue,&quot; he said, adding that the agency had been receiving reports that people were trapped in debris.</p><p>At least 50 individuals have been reported dead from the tremor, and the number could still go higher as rescue efforts continue.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>DAMAGE</strong></div><div><strong><br/></strong></div><p>Dramatic footage filmed by residents and widely shared on social media showed an old Catholic church on Bantayan island near Cebu adorned with a string of light bulbs swaying wildly shortly before its belfry tumbled into the courtyard.</p><p>Local television showed riders being forced to dismount from their motorcycles and hold onto the railings for dear life as a Cebu bridge violently rocked.</p><p>Buildings were damaged as far as Cebu City, 100 kilometers south of Bogo, where online shoe merchant Jayford Maranga, 21, hid under a restaurant table to avoid being struck by the collapsing metal ceiling of a shopping mall.</p><p>&quot;My friend and I ate at the food court near closing time, and then, bang! It was as if the Earth stopped spinning. And then the mall started shaking,&quot; Maranga told AFP, adding his friend was slightly injured.</p><p>The Cebu provincial government has put out a call on its official Facebook page for medical volunteers to assist in the aftermath of the quake.</p><p>&quot;There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,&quot; provincial rescue official Wilson Ramos told AFP.</p><p>Overnight recovery efforts were hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, he added.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>AFTERSHOCKS</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>The rescue effort proceeded all night even as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the region was being rocked by 379 aftershocks.</p><p>The quake caused power lines to trip, leading to outages across Cebu and nearby central islands, though power was restored shortly after midnight in Cebu and four other major central islands, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said in an updated advisory.</p><p>The Cebu provincial government reported that a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a fast food restaurant in Bogo was heavily damaged.</p><p>Agnes Merza, 65, a carer based in Bantayan, said her kitchen tiles had cracked.</p><p>&quot;It felt as though we would all fall down. It&#x27;s the first time I have experienced it. The neighbors all ran out of their homes. My two teenage assistants hid under a table because that&#x27;s what they were taught in the boy scouts,&quot; she told AFP.</p><p>A number of village roads also sustained damage.</p><p>Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific &quot;Ring of Fire,&quot; an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.</p><p>Most are too weak to be felt by humans, but strong and destructive ones come at random, with no technology available to predict when and where they might strike.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n8_9pUpG2WU?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zoG1rVX2HLc?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>Disaster authorities are now racing to save trapped residents in quake-hit Cebu province within the crucial 24 hours, the Office of Civil Defense said Wednesday.</p>

Disaster authorities are now racing to save trapped residents in quake-hit Cebu province within the crucial 24 hours, the Office of Civil Defense said Wednesday.

Authorities race to save trapped residents within crucial 24 hours after Cebu quake

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Authorities race to save trapped residents within crucial 24 hours after Cebu quake

Rowegie Abanto,

Jervis Manahan,

ABS-CBN News,

Agence France-Presse

Published October 01, 2025 11:17 AM PHT

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