A magnitude 7.8 earthquake rocked the southern Philippines on Monday morning, killing at least 35 people, injuring more than 200, and sending tsunami waves crashing into coastal communities across Mindanao, the country's second most populous island. The quake struck at 7:37 a.m. as children were arriving for their first day of school after a two-month summer break.
The offshore temblor, centered roughly 20 miles southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani province at a depth of about 20 miles, was the strongest earthquake to hit the Philippines this year, the Associated Press reported. It collapsed buildings, triggered a deadly landslide, temporarily shut down an international airport, and sent residents fleeing into streets across a wide swath of Mindanao.
At least four people remained missing in General Santos, a port city of more than 700,000 people where search and rescue teams worked through damaged supermarkets, warehouses, a grade school, and other structures that either collapsed or sustained severe damage.
The deadliest single incident appears to have been a landslide in the town of Glan, in Sarangani province, which killed 13 villagers. Provincial disaster-mitigation official Rene Punzalan told the DZBB radio network that four additional villagers died elsewhere in Sarangani. Most other deaths were caused by collapsing buildings and falling debris, including in a damaged mosque, across South Cotabato, Davao Occidental, and on Balut Island, disaster officials Rod Sosmeña and Ednar Dayanghirang reported.
Sosmeña, the regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, was traveling in General Santos when the quake hit. He told the AP:
"Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire. The shaking was very strong and people dashed out of houses into the streets."
The timing compounded the horror. Monday marked the first day of classes after summer break, and more than 100 students and a dozen teachers had gathered for a flag-raising ceremony at a grade school compound in Malita, Davao Occidental province, when the ground began to shake.
School principal Rosavel Cachuela told the AP that some young students screamed in panic and wept, though most remained seated and still, a response that likely prevented injuries at her school. A motorcycle was damaged when a shed crumbled to the ground nearby. Cachuela captured the moment plainly:
"Their excitement on the first day of school turned to trauma."
A social media video shared by Mahayahay Elementary School showed children screaming and crying as the quake struck. The Philippines is no stranger to natural disasters, the archipelago is battered by roughly 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, but a 7.8 magnitude earthquake carries a different kind of force, one that can level structures in seconds and reshape coastlines.
The earthquake generated tsunami waves that hit nearby coasts almost immediately. Waves of roughly three feet were monitored in Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani provinces. Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said a 4.6-foot wave struck Kiamba town at one point, large enough to damage coastal structures.
In Zamboanga del Sur province, six shanties built on stilts were damaged in a coastal village by the quake and the resulting waves, officials said.
The tsunami's reach extended well beyond the Philippines. A gauge off Indonesia's Sulawesi island measured a 2.7-foot wave. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center recorded one-foot waves in Palau. The Japan Meteorological Agency detected waves of nearly eight inches at Chichijima and in Kushimoto. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the broader tsunami threat largely passed about five hours after the initial quake, and Philippine officials lifted their tsunami warning by mid-afternoon.
The Philippines faces political turbulence alongside its natural disasters. The country's ongoing impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte have already tested the government's ability to manage simultaneous crises, a test that Monday's earthquake made far more urgent.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the cancellation of classes across affected areas and directed disaster-response agencies to get to work immediately in quake-hit provinces.
"The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind."
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines shut down the international airport in General Santos temporarily and canceled 17 domestic flights. Bacolcol warned residents to seek professional advice before returning to damaged buildings and houses, given the risk of aftershock-related collapses.
The United States said it was coordinating with Manila and stood ready to support Philippine response efforts. France, Japan, and New Zealand also expressed support. The speed of international response matters in events like these, where the window for rescuing survivors trapped in rubble narrows by the hour.
Search and rescue teams continued working at multiple sites in General Santos, where several mostly low-rise buildings collapsed or sustained heavy damage. The DZRH radio network in Manila reported that a four-story commercial building housing its provincial station partly collapsed, though staffers managed to dash to the ground floor without injuries.
Disaster preparedness is a perennial concern in the Philippines, a nation situated along the Pacific Ring of Fire and subject to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and typhoons with grim regularity. The question that follows every major quake is whether building codes, emergency infrastructure, and response protocols have kept pace with the threat, or whether government attention and resources have been diverted elsewhere.
Crises abroad often serve as reminders of the fragility of public safety systems everywhere. Whether the threat is military strikes in the Middle East or an earthquake in the Pacific, the pattern holds: ordinary people bear the cost when institutions fail to prepare.
The confirmed death toll of 35 is almost certainly preliminary. With at least four people still missing in General Santos alone and rescue operations ongoing at multiple collapsed structures, the final count could climb. The full extent of damage to infrastructure, roads, bridges, water systems, and power lines, across Mindanao's affected provinces has yet to be assessed.
The identities and conditions of the more than 200 injured have not been publicly detailed. Nor has any official agency confirmed which seismological body produced the initial magnitude reading cited in reporting, though the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology provided the depth and location data.
For the families in Glan who lost 13 people to a single landslide, for the schoolchildren whose first day back became a day of terror, and for the residents of General Santos still waiting to learn whether their neighbors survived, the numbers are not abstract. They are the cost of living on one of the most geologically active stretches of earth on the planet, a cost that demands serious, sustained investment in preparedness, not just speeches after the shaking stops.
Events like these also underscore why public safety, whether from natural disaster or human threat, is the first obligation of any government. When that obligation goes unmet, the people who pay are never the ones in the capital buildings.
Nature does not wait for governments to get their act together. Neither should the people who depend on them.
