By Atma Tattva Das,
More than a month after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake tore through Sarangani Province, a small team of Food for Life volunteers has spent recent weeks delivering prasadam directly into the province’s hardest-hit and least accessible villages, working out of a makeshift outdoor kitchen with no running water and irregular contact with the outside world. Their account, shared by team member Balaram Das, offers a rare first-person window into what sustained disaster relief looks like once the news cameras leave.
A Region Still Shaking
The June 8 earthquake killed at least 94 people and damaged or destroyed more than 121,000 homes across Mindanao, with Sarangani among the worst-affected provinces. Weeks later, the ground has not settled. “Since the powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake on June 8, more than 120 earthquakes and aftershocks have shaken the land,” Balaram said, describing a sense of ongoing unrest that residents live with daily. Official seismic monitoring has recorded aftershock totals far higher, in the thousands, though the figure Balaram cites reflects what residents on the ground felt and counted for themselves. The result, he said, is a landscape where recovery competes constantly with fear. “Most families no longer sleep inside their houses,” he said. “Instead, they have made fragile tents their refuge, choosing the uncertainty of the open sky over walls that may collapse at any moment.”
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