COTABATO CITY – A 65-year-old man died while an 18-year-old boy was hurt during the magnitude 4.3 quake that shook North Cotabato province at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
Engineer Arnulfo Villaruz, provincial disaster risk reduction and management office (PDRRMO) operation chief, identified the fatality as Romualdo Vicente, 65, of Sultan Kudarat province. He was in M’lang, North Cotabato visiting a relative at the time of the tremor.
Villaruz said Vicente complained of chest pains following the quake and was rushed to the M’lang district hospital where he was pronounced dead by doctors.
Meanwhile, church worker John Eric Bercasio, 18, of Barangay Poblacion M’lang, sustained a slight injury in his head after a huge hanging wooden crucifix at a local chapel fell on him during the tremor.
“I felt dizzy after the huge cross fell on my head,” Bercasio told Villaruz after the incident.
In Kidapawan City and Magpet, North Cotabato, public school students rushed to open space during the quake for safety.
In a bulletin, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the earthquake was tectonic in origin and was traced 14 km. west of Makilala, North Cotabato. -Edwin Fernandez
