A Filipino vlogger who built an online following documenting his life as an overseas worker in Greenland found himself in the middle of one of the strongest earthquakes to hit Mindanao this year, hours after arriving home in General Santos City.
In a Facebook post on his page “Pinoy in Greenland,” the content creator described a ten-day journey home that took him from Greenland to Denmark, then on through Paris, China and Manila before reaching General Santos. He had spent only one night in the city when the earthquake struck the following morning. “Kala ko na jet lag lang ako, un pla lindol na,” he wrote, recounting that he initially mistook the shaking for fatigue from his travels. He said everything inside the hotel got soaked, that the group’s passports survived because they were wrapped in plastic, and that he could see concrete falling as they crawled to safety, fearing it was the end for them.
The quake he survived struck at 7:37 a.m. on Monday, June 8. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) recorded it at magnitude 7.8, with its offshore epicenter located near Maasim in Sarangani, south of General Santos. According to the United States Geological Survey, the tremor hit at a depth of about 35 kilometers.
General Santos, a tuna-processing hub of roughly 720,000 people, sustained some of the heaviest damage. Verified videos cited by Agence France-Presse showed a shopping centre housing a Jollibee outlet reduced to rubble, and Philippine reports noted major damage to parts of SM City General Santos and a building at Notre Dame of Dadiangas University. Al Jazeera reported that police spokesperson Robert Dagun said sections of the city’s St. Elizabeth Hospital were severely damaged, forcing patients and staff to evacuate.
Casualty figures remained in flux through the day. The Office of Civil Defense, cited by GMA News, placed the validated death toll at eight as of Monday afternoon, while some international outlets reported higher preliminary counts. Phivolcs said the initial quake was followed by dozens of aftershocks ranging up to magnitude 6.7, and recorded tsunami waves of up to 1.4 meters at several monitoring stations. Tsunami warnings were issued for parts of the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan before being lifted later in the day.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed government agencies to begin rescue operations and urged residents in coastal areas to move to higher ground, while classes were suspended across affected parts of Mindanao on what had been the first day of the new school term.
