8K schools affected, 35 damaged by powerful Abra quake —DepEd

More than 8,000 schools were affected while 35 others were damaged by the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Abra on Wednesday, the Department of Education (DepEd) said Thursday.

In a statement, DepEd said that the 35 damaged schools were from 15 school division offices in Luzon.

Of the number, 11 were from Region III (Central Luzon), nine from Region II (Cagayan Valley), eight from Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR ), and seven schools from Region I (Ilocos Region).

DepEd said this is based on  the initial Rapid Assessment of Damages Report (RADaR) of the agency's Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS).

DRRMS' report also showed that the initial estimated cost for the damaged schools' reconstruction and rehabilitation is at P228.5 million, DepEd said.

The 8,027 affected schools, DepEd said, were those located in areas under instrumental intensity in the PHIVOLCS’ Earthquake Information or were reported to have casualties.

DepEd said it attended the 1st Response Cluster Meeting and joined the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Virtual Emergency Operations Center to further assess the situation of the affected regions due to the earthquake.

It also called for an emergency meeting with the regional and division DRRM coordinators of the affected regions to present updates and response actions undertaken by their office.

DRRMS has likewise coordinated with the field DRRM coordinators to get updates regarding the number of affected learners, teachers, and non-teaching personnel.

The earthquake hit a month before School Year 2022-2023 opens on August 22. —Giselle Ombay/KBK, GMA News