Likely driven by memories of a previous tragedy, some 132 families or 581 individuals from four coastal villages here evacuated to safer grounds on Friday evening after state seismologists raised a second tsunami warning following a 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off Manay, Davao Oriental at 7:12 p.m.
According to Mayor Samuel Co, when they saw the families taking refuge at the covered court in the City Hall grounds, he ordered local government personnel to attend to the evacuees’ needs. Hot meals were prepared and the facility’s tiled floor was cleaned to facilitate the family’s temporary stay Co said that even as the city was not included in the tsunami warning, they still made it a point to help the families feel secure for the night. ‘It was better that way than have them return to their homes with unease about what might happen,’ Co told the Inquirer.
Although the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology had cancelled its second tsunami warning by 11:12 p.m. on Friday, the families chose to stay for the night at the covered court, Co noted.
On Saturday, as the families had felt comfortable with the situation, they took turns returning home in the villages of White Beach, Santiago, San Pedro and Kawit, Co added.
Co explained that because many older residents in the city’s coastal communities have memories of the 1976 Moro Gulf tragedy, it was understandable that flashbacks of these drove them to seek safer grounds. At past midnight on Aug. 17, 1976, or almost 50 years ago, a magnitude 8.1 quake struck at the Moro Gulf, generating a tsunami that swept through the coastal communities of Zamboanga del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, Sulu and Basilan provinces, including Zamboanga, Cotabato and Pagadian cities.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the tragedy, many from the tsuanmi that left a wide swathe of destruction in the coastal communities, including in this city.