AFP, GLAN, Philippines
Arsenio Butil Jr fell to his knees and began to pray when last week’s deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines.When he opened his eyes, he saw a once-familiar shoreline changing in real time, with swathes of previously submerged coral suddenly pushing above the waterline.The June 8 quake, driven by a shifting of the nearby Cotabato Trench, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and killed at least 76 people on the southern island of Mindanao.
An aerial photo taken on Thursday shows the coastal uplift following a magnitude 7.8 earthquake along the Pangyan Marine Sanctuary in Glan, Sarangani, Philippines.
Photo: AFP
The tectonic forces at work also thrust chunks of the island’s coastline upward in a phenomenon known as “coastal uplift,” leaving stretches of shore unrecognizable to families who have spent their whole lives there.During a visit to the area, Agence France-Presse saw fishing boats that had once been at the water’s edge on the wrong side of a wall of jagged, now-dead coral stretching for kilometers in both directions.
