At least 19 people have been reported dead due to the magnitude 6.9 quake that hit Cebu on Tuesday night, an Office of Civil Defense official said on Wednesday.
“We received reports it’s 19 in Cebu alone… Nineteen dead,” Diego Mariano, officer-in-charge of OCD’s Civil Defense Communications and Advocacy Division, told a phone interview.
Mariano could not immediately say the specific locations in Cebu where the victims died.
As to the damage, he said the OCD is still conducting a thorough assessment.
Nevertheless, Mariano said the areas hit by the quake is highly-urbanized “so we expect that many infrastructures were damaged.”
The quake occurred at 9:59 p.m. Tuesday, with the epicenter located some 21 kms northeast of Bogo City, according to the Philippinte Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
