Amid Bogo City rubble, a two-time survivor
Romeo Migabon survived “Yolanda” in 2013, but may now have to deal yet again with losing his home, one that was built for the victims of the supertyphoon.
Migabon looked despondently at his house, or what was left of it, after the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Cebu province on Tuesday night.
But the Bogo City resident said he was still grateful to see all his family members merely sustaining injuries during the quake.
“We can’t do anything about it, I’m just thankful we only got wounded. We can probably recover from this,” said Migabon, one of the hundreds of villagers at Barangay Pulambato who were rendered homeless.
Their houses at Pulambato were part of the resettlement projects for Yolanda victims in the city.
Elsewhere in Bogo, responders as of this writing were trying to reach at least three bodies from the collapsed Condor Pension House in Barangay Gairan.
Erwin Castañeda of the local fire department identified the three victims as receptionists Mercedita Balleta and Gemma Gilig, and Gemma’s 4-year-old son.
“We can see them from under the rubble but they were covered by debris and we can’t get near,” Castañeda told the Inquirer when contacted on the phone around 6 p.m.
Most of the confirmed quake fatalities in Cebu as of press time were in Bogo City (30), followed by the towns of San Remigio (22), Medellin (10), Tabogon (5) and one each in Sogod and Tabuelan, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
Many of the victims were crushed to death as they slept.
