The Philippine authorities today raised the death toll to 47 following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the southern island of Mindanao on Monday. A toll released by officials on Wednesday had previously reported 46 fatalities as a result of the disaster.
This new update, released by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, also indicates a total of 688 injured and 31 people missing. Rescue operations continue across several provinces in the southern archipelago, where dozens of structures were damaged or destroyed by the quake and the more than two thousand aftershocks that followed.
Authorities continue to deploy personnel from the Civil Defense, the armed forces, and volunteers to locate potential survivors beneath the rubble. The powerful earthquake, one of the most intense recorded in the Philippines in recent decades, affected around 390,000 people, according to data updated today by the government’s Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Read more about this topic: The history of deadly and destructive earthquakes in the Philippines (with videos)
The report also raises the total number of damaged houses to 18,614, of which 3,330 were completely destroyed, and estimates the number of people displaced by the catastrophe at 39,293, with damages and full scope still being quantified.
The earthquake also caused damage to public buildings, roads, bridges, and electricity and drinking water supply networks in several areas of Mindanao, the archipelago’s second-largest island.
Preliminarily, the government estimates that infrastructure losses will exceed nine million dollars, which is equivalent to approximately 7.8 million euros. The Philippines is situated on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, which is known as one of the zones with the highest seismic and volcanic activity on the planet, making earthquakes a frequent occurrence.
