Heart-stopping footage captured dozens of elementary school students wailing in terror as they were violently jolted back and forth when a deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Philippines on their first day of school Monday.
Dramatic video showed more than 100 terrified pupils at DepEd Mahayahay Elementary School in Davao Occidental on the ground being jerked side to side, screaming and crying as panicked teachers raced to comfort them – just before a coconut tree-rigged roof came crashing down.
The hysterical uniformed students – celebrating their first day of classes outside when the massive quake struck – scattered in fear after the roof collapsed, as staffers desperately tried to quell the chaos.
School children were seen huddling together and clinging to their teachers, with one bawling young child kneeling and covering her ears, the minute-long clip shows.
“Their excitement on the first day of school turned to trauma,” school principal Rosavel Cachuela said, adding that there were miraculously no injuries and only a motorcycle was damaged
At least 32 people were killed and more than 200 injured after an offshore earthquake slammed the southern Philippines, triggering a small 3-foot tsunami and leveling several low-rise buildings across the region.
Tsunami damage was reported in at least one southern coastal village, while smaller waves rippled across Indonesia and Palau and reached as far as southern Japan.
A deadly landslide also tore through Glan in Sarangani province, killing 13 villagers.
The earthquake was the strongest to hit the Philippines this year, according to Teresito Bacolol of the Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, who warned residents to seek guidance before returning to damaged buildings that could collapse in aftershocks.
The quake was centered at sea off Mindanao, the country’s second most populous island.
With Post wires.
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