Many local government units across La Union, Benguet and Pangasinan issued class and work suspensions Thursday after a magnitude-4.4 struck the town of Pugo, La Union at 10:30 a.m.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) confirmed reported intensities following this seismic activity, but clarified that no aftershocks and damage to properties are expected over this incident.
Regardless, the following areas sent some students and workers home as a matter of precaution:
LA UNION
- Pugo – Classes at all levels and work in government offices
- Bauang – Classes at all levels, public and private
- Mapandan – Classes at all levels, public and private, except Mapandan National High School and Mapandan Central School
BENGUET
- Baguio City – Classes from pre-school to senior high school, public and private
PANGASINAN
- Mangaldan – Classes at all levels, public and private, and work in government offices
- Rosales – Classes at all levels, public and private
- Asingan – Classes at all levels, public and private; learning to continue through modular, asynchronous, or distance learning
Phivolcs traced the tremor at three kilometers northeast of Pugo at a depth of 23 kilometers. It was felt in the quake’s epicenter as well as Tubao and San Fernando, La Union; Baguio City and Itogon, Benguet; as well as Villasis, Pangasinan.
Other reported instrumental intensities covered the areas of Aringay, La Union; Sison, Lingayen and Urdaneta, Pangasinan; Nampicuan, Nueva Ecija; and Bontoc, Mountain Province.
The Baguio City Public Information Office reported that City Building Official Architect Johnny Degay is coordinating with the administrators of schools, malls, and both private and public buildings to ensure the structural integrity of these facilities following the earthquake.
“We’re going to check for damage,” building administrator Ralph Cabuag told Agence France Presse (AFP) as more than 300 employees and patients filed out of the three-storey Baguio city health office.
Employees rushed out of office buildings in the city of 366,000 following the shallow quake, which occurred at 10:30 a.m., 10 days after a powerful quake killed more than 70 people in the central Philippines.
A 7.8 quake in July 1990 killed some 1,600 people in and around Baguio, a city located atop a mountain range that is also one of the country’s top tourist draws.
Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
Also on Thursday, the government raised the death toll from the Cebu quake at 74, with two new deaths reported in the towns of Medellin and Tabogon in Cebu island.
The quake destroyed or damaged about 72,000 houses and injured 1,058 other people, disaster officials said. —With Agence France Presse
