Several Catholic and Protestant churches were damaged by the strong earthquake that hit the northern province of Abra on Tuesday evening.
The spire of an old church in the town of La Paz crumbled, scattering blocks of brick on the courtyard, its parish priest Christian Edward Padua told AFP.
Parish priest Jose Vernon Ilano said a life-size statue of Jesus Christ lay face-down on the floor with its severed right arm nearby at his damaged Catholic church in the Ilocos Norte town of Sarrat.
A church of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, also known as the Aglipayan Church, was also reported damaged.
The Nuestra Señora de La Paz in Poblacion, La Paz, Abra, is one of the oldest IFI churches and among the most beautiful in the Philippines, said a report on the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
It was built in the 1880s, years before the IFI was founded and separated from the Catholic Church in 1902.
The Office of Civil Defense reported that a number of old churches both in Abra and Ilocos Norte provinces sustained damage.
The Lagayan mayor’s office in Abra was closed after it sustained cracks and broken windows, as was a newly built high school already damaged by a strong quake earlier this year.
“We had a room in there with old laptops that toppled like dominoes. The walls and the posts were destroyed. It’s no longer safe to use,” Esterio Apolinar, principal of Lagayan’s Pulot National High School, told AFP.
Church aid
Caritas Philippines, the humanitarian arm of the Catholic Church in the country, on Wednesday announced that it has already deployed teams to assess the damage caused by the quake.
“Our social action centers are already capacitated to act accordingly,” said Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo, national director of Caritas Philippines.
“They would know already how to respond immediately,” the prelate told LiCAS News on the sideline of the ongoing general conference of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in Thailand.
He said that after the initial assessment, the Church will distribute funds to those most affected “because relief goods will take some time to arrive.”
Bishop Bagaforo, however, said they can only offer assistance to those most in need as funds generated by the annual Lenten Alay Kapwa campaign were already used in recent disasters.
He expressed optimism that the faithful will continue to support Church initiatives to help those most in need.
The bishop expressed his sympathies to the families affected by the quake that injured at least six people and caused substantial damage to a hospital and several old churches.
“Our prayers are with the people of the northern Philippines who suffered the brunt of the earthquake,” said the bishop.
Afraid to return home
Residents were too afraid to return to their homes as aftershocks continued to rock the region on Wednesday.
The 6.4-magnitude quake struck the mountain town of Dolores in Abra province late Tuesday, cutting power to most of the region.
Numerous aftershocks rattled Abra through the night and into Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Rescuers pulled out 10 residents from damaged buildings in Ilocos Norte, where 15 people sustained injuries, authorities said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr ordered a school holiday as authorities assessed damaged buildings and said electricity was being restored.
A building housing a gallery of photos of the presidency of his father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, in their home city of Batac was among those damaged.
“People are asking for tents, and the reason why is they are afraid of going back to their houses because of the aftershocks, which could collapse their houses with the foundations weakened,” Marcos Jr told reporters.
Several patients spent most of the night outside two government hospitals in Ilocos Norte after ceilings collapsed on several rooms in one and damaged equipment, officials said.
All patients and staff were safe but the outpatient department of one of the two facilities was closed while the building was being inspected.
At least 11 people were hurt and 58 classrooms were damaged in Abra, many of them in worst-hit town of Lagayan, provincial disaster officer Arnel Valdez said.
All the region’s airports were temporarily closed as runways and other facilities were checked for damage, the civil aviation office said in a statement.
A 7.0-magnitude quake in mountainous Abra in July triggered landslides and ground fissures, killing 11 people and injuring several hundred.
Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin. – with a report from Agence France Presse
