The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will provide financial assistance and cover the burial expenses of families of the victims killed during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Cebu on Tuesday.
‘The DSWD’s Field Office Central Visayas is now accounting the number of casualties and their location. Our social workers will also talk to the concerned families to inform them that the DSWD will shoulder the burial expenses of their loved ones,’ the agency’s spokesperson Irene Dumlao said in a statement on Wednesday.
Dumlao also shared that the DSWD’s Central Visayas office will give P10,000 in cash assistance to the families of the deceased. On Wednesday morning, at least 61 individuals were confirmed dead while at least 147 individuals were injured during the quake, prompting the Cebu provincial government to place the entire province under a state of calamity.
The earthquake struck Central Visayas on Tuesday evening, but the number of casualties continues to rise, the Cebu Provincial Disaster Response and Risk Reduction Management Office said. The provincial government reported that a commercial building and a school collapsed, and several village roads were damaged.
Some power lines were also tripped, according to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) warned of aftershocks and earthquake-induced mass movements, such as landslides.
Furthermore, Phivolcs said the earthquake was caused by the movement of an offshore active fault northeast of Cebu Island.