Cebu quake survivors beg for food, sleep in open fields as government aid stalls

Under the searing midday sun, homemaker Leira Macasero, 35, stood by the roadside in a northern Cebu town, cradling her two-month-old son.

- Mara Cepeda

Around her, young neighbours held up cardboard signs that read: “We need food and water.”

“We're afraid to sleep inside our homes because they might collapse,” Ms Macasero told The Straits Times. “So in the past three days, we've just been laying out mats on the ground to sleep at night.”

Nearly three days after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake rattled the quiet of northern Cebu in the central Philippines late on Sept 30, thousands of survivors like Ms Macasero and her family remain displaced, desperate and exposed to the elements.

With no money on hand and government aid slow to arrive in this far-flung village of Tinubdan in Daanbantayan town, Ms Macasero and her neighbours have been sleeping in open fields and begging for food on the streets, relying on the kindness of volunteers and passersby.

As at Oct 2, at least 72 people have been confirmed dead following one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in recent years, with nearly 300 injured and more than 170,000 affected across the province.

With homes damaged and official evacuation centres too unsafe to enter, hundreds now stay in open fields, under tarpaulins or borrowed tents.

“We're sleeping here on this field,” said Tinubdan Village Councilor Rutchia Rosaroso, adding that the town’s two designated evacuation centres — a basketball court and a school building — have been deemed unsafe due to the earthquake. Hundreds are now staying in tents in the open in Daanbantayan, and are scattered around the town.

In nearby San Remigio, one of the worst-hit towns, Mayor Mariano Martinez said nearly a thousand people are now staying in two tent cities — and the number is growing.