The 3rd to 5th floors of the Cadiz District Hospital in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental, remain closed after glass windows were shattered during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck the Visayas on Tuesday night.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Girlie Pinongan said on Thursday that the broken windows pose safety risks and must be repaired before patients can return.
At the height of the quake, 113 patients were evacuated to the ground floor. About half of them have since been transferred to an adjacent facility, previously used as a COVID-19 isolation building, Pinongan added.
Meanwhile, the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City sustained minor cracks but was declared structurally safe. No other provincial government-owned hospitals in Negros Occidental reported damage.
Donato Sermeno, director of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the Negros Island Region, said no significant structural damage was recorded in other buildings across the region.
He added that the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology expects aftershocks to persist for at least a week. So far, 2,600 aftershocks have been recorded, ranging from magnitude 1 to 5./coa