No casualty in Albay jolt

LEGAZPI CITY ---- Thousands of mall goérs in five big commercial malls in this city were guided to safer grounds after an Intensity 3 earthquake jolted the city at around 1:37 p.m. Tuesday, the Albay Public Safety Emergency Management Office (APSEMO) said.

Cedric Daep, APSEMO chief, said there was no casualty reported in at least five shopping malls in the city’s business district as disaster officials were able to effectively adopt the earthquake disaster drills that mall operators and their employees successfully underwent as preventive and precautionary measures.

Daep in a phone interview said the training on disaster preparedness response has paid off as people at the mall followed systematically all the instructions given by security personnel while they were moved to safer grounds.

“There was no report of panic and stampede as people moved out of the establishment in a systematic manner,” Daep said,

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) reported that a 6.5 magnitude earthquake of tectonic origin hit Eastern Samar Tuesday.

The quake with Intensity 4 was felt in the cities of Legazpi, Sorsogon, and Masbate, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Bicol said.