DANGEROUS. A student walks around a collapsed waiting shed outside their school in Teodoro Palma Gil Elementary School, which injured two women on Tuesday morning after a 4.6 magnitude quake hit Davao City. (Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano/davatoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Two women were injured after an old and concrete waiting shed collapsed outside a public school here Thursday morning following an earthquake with 4.6 magnitude.
Chief Inspector Catherine Dela Rey in a statement said Teresa Pusta, 43, an employee of a private firm and Fe Yu, 66, a retired teacher both acquired head injuries after the waiting shed outside the Teodor Palma Gil Elementary School collapsed.
Dela Rey said the two were waiting for a jeepney ride in the waiting shed past 9 a.m.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake with a occurred at 9:50 am at the 9 kilometers northwest of Davao City.
Intensity 4 was recorded in Davao City while Koronadal City recorded Intensity 1.
Another mild earthquake with 2.9 magnitude occurred at 1:16 pm 11 kilometers northwest of Davao City with Intensity 3. Both quakes were tectonic in origin.
Administrative aide Rene Caballo said one of the women fell after she was hit by the waiting shed made of concrete cement.
“We helped her after seeing that her head was bleeding,” Caballo told reporters in an interview.
Caballo said the woman had a hard time standing up and appeared to have sustained leg injury.
“We pulled her out from the shed fearing that it will totally collapse,” he said. Caballo added that Pusta were conscious.
Caballo added that it took time for the 911 to arrive. “Maybe it took them around 30 minutes,” he said.
School principal Marietta Gaer said the students went outside the campus when the earthquake occurred. She said they resumed classes past 11:00 am.
“Anyway, there was no damage inside the school,” she told reporters.
Gaer said the waiting shed is already old and “already had cracks because of the weight of its rooftop.”
“I don’t know when it was really built, but I think it a long time ago,” she said.
Meanwhile, the National Grid and Power Corporation assured the public that power transmission services are stable despite the earthquake.
“The grid remains intact as there had been no reported cases of power interruptions and damaged transmission facilities in the South Mindanao area,” NGCP said in a statement.(davaotoday.com)
