The mayor of Cataingan, the Masbate town badly hit by yesterday’s 6.6 magnitude earthquake, today appealed to the Duterte administration for help as his constituents grapple with the disaster as well as the coronavirus pandemic.
Mayor Felipe Cabataña said that the town’s disaster fund has run out because it has been used in its COVID-19 response.
“If possible, I wish to ask the national government to help us because our calamity fund was all used up for COVID-19,” the mayor said in English and Filipino in an interview with news program Unang Hirit.
“We didn’t expect this earthquake to hit so we didn’t have the allocation for this type of calamity, so people are having a hard time,” he added.
An estimated PHP23.96 million (US$493,431) worth of infrastructure has been damaged, including roads, bridges, and at least 19 schools in different villages in Masbate. A retired police officer was pinned to his death when his three-storey house collapsed in Cataingan. Meanwhile, at least 24 residents were injured in different parts of the province.
Mayor Cabataña said that at least 20 families from his town are staying in evacuation centers, where social distancing is difficult to enforce.
“The evacuation center is too small and there are too many people,” he said. “What we need urgently are temporary shelter, such as tents. People no longer want to stay at home. They fear the quake because that one [yesterday] was the worst quake to hit our town.”
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