Big losses in businesses due to tremors
Local News • 19:45 PM Fri Nov 8, 2019
811
By:
John M. Unson
The damaged Eva's Building in Kidapawan City. (contributed photo)
KIDAPAWAN CITY --- Officials placed at P3 billion their initial estimate of losses in businesses in Kidapawan City in the past three weeks due to strong earthquakes that jolted the area during the period.
Psalmer Bernalte of the Kidapawan City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, or DRRMO, said Friday one reason for the constraint is the closure of commercial establishments in buildings whose structural durability are still subject to assessment by engineers.
Among those that Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evanglista ordered shut were shopping malls, grocery stores, banks, restaurants and food outlets operating on national franchises.
Bernalte, chief of the DRRMO, said the owner alone of Eva’s commercial building along a stretch of the Cotabato-Davao Highway straddling through the center of Kidapawan City lost about P1 billion when a strong aftershock destroyed the tall structure on October 31.
Kidapawan City and nearby North Cotabato towns were first jolted by a magnitude 6.3 foreshock on October 16, followed by no fewer than 2,000 aftershocks since.