When Natalia Roxas saw the alert about a powerful earthquake that struck off the coast of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday, she immediately called her family, who lives close to the affected area.
“I immediately reach out to my family and friends, and people I care about and love in that regions to check if they’re OK, if they were safe, in which they are,” the Waialua resident told HPR.
The 7.8-magnitude quake, which has been the strongest in the Philippines this year, triggered a tsunami warning across the Pacific, including Hawai‘i.
The death toll has risen to 37 and nearly 500 injured.
Filipinos in Hawai‘i have been picking up their phones to check in with their loved ones in the region.
Roxas’ family members sent her a video of when the earthquake happened at a school. Children were huddled together on the ground, swaying side to side, before a makeshift shelter in the background collapsed.
“It’s jarring to deal with that," she said.
Roxas is no stranger to earthquakes. She grew up with them in the Philippines and experienced several more when she lived in California.
The Philippines experiences more than 100 earthquakes each year. The country is in a tectonically complex area called “The Ring of Fire,” which has high volcanic activity and earthquakes.
When she was 7, Roxas felt her first quake in Manila. Mount Pinatubo, located roughly 60 miles from where Roxas lived, erupted that day in 1991. Her mother grabbed her and her sister to get out of their house.
“I could just hear things that are creaking or suddenly things had fallen and collapsed,” she said. “All I remember is seeing the cars on the street that were shaking and bumping into each other.”
With phone lines down in some areas, many Filipinos in Hawai‘i are trying to get more details after the earthquake.
O‘ahu resident Lydia Querian is founder of House of Gongs and creates Indigenous fashion attire. She collaborates with artisans from Mindanao, including Indigenous weavers.
“They are safe from what I hear, and that the weaving centers are still intact,” she said.
She said she’s still worried about the Indigenous artisans and that the quake has exposed economic disparities during natural disasters.
“Usually the affected ones are the Indigenous communities because the land where they are from is being exploited and abused,” she said. “They're left with very little room for them to bounce back right away. From what I know, the government is quite slow in responding in situations like this.”
A representative from the Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu told HPR that officials are still assessing damages.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered several government agencies to move toward recovery efforts in the Philippines that include restoring essential services, conducting damage assessments, and emergency relief. Agencies involved in the recovery efforts are the Philippine Institutes of Volcanology and Seismology, the Office of Civil Defense, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, and other agencies.
“It is too early to provide a definitive recovery timeline,” a representative said in an email to HPR. “Immediate priorities are search and rescue, emergency response, damage assessment, and restoration of public services. The timeline for restoration and reconstruction will depend on the results of the ongoing damage assessments and the corresponding rehabilitation requirements.”
