The fear of a tsunami has spread this Tuesday through the north of the Philippine archipelago. At seven o'clock, after dark, an earthquake recorded 31 kilometers deep shook the waters of the Babuyan Islands, north of Luzon.
The earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.3, has raised fears for coastal towns close to the hypocenter, such as Clavería, just 74 kilometers away. According to what La Vanguardia has been able to gather, in localities much further away from the province of Cagayan itself or from the neighboring province of Ilocos del Norte, such as Solsona, the tremor startled the residents.
The Philippines sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity in which about 7,000 earthquakes are recorded every year, most of them moderate. To this we must add the numerous typhoons that frequently hit the eastern coast of the country.
After a few moments of expectation, the Philippine civil protection would have ruled out the risk of a tsunami or significant damage, by Philippine standards. The initial estimate of 6.8 magnitude was lowered to 6.2 by seismologists.
It so happens that just a few hours earlier, President Ferdinand Marcos - son of the dictator of the same name, son of Ilocos Norte - had sent a message of condolence to the monarch of Morocco for the earthquake that has devastated several towns and villages in the south. of the kingdom.
The coastal municipality of Clavería, one of the northernmost in Luzon, honors with its name Narcís Claveria from Girona, the governor of the Philippines in the mid-nineteenth century who gave the Tagalogs and other native peoples of the islands a choice from a long list. of Castilian surnames, which they carry to this day.
