I am khirstin, 17 years old, a resident San Remigio, Cebu, and a Grade 12 student of San Remigio National High School.
This is...
MY EARTHQUAKE STORY: A VERY TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE.
It's been a month since the earthquake happened, yet the trauma has never left my mind.
September 30, 2025
It was just another normal day, or so we thought. We believed that it was just a normal school day. My classmates and I were working on our TRAPO PROJECT for our Contemporary Arts subject, laughing, talking about future plans and listening to music — unaware of the terrifying disaster that would strike later that night.
My MUSIC VIDEO groupmates and I also received a medal because, out of 10 groups, our music video was among the Top 3. The medal really made that day memorable for me. But something happened later that night that made me forget how happy I was when I received the medal.
After our classes ended that day, I attended Lorene's 18th birthday to celebrate her first day of adulthood. Most of my friends that also attended her birthday loved South Korea, so we pretended that we were in South Korea and spoke the few Korean words we know such as “annyeonghaseyo”, “imnida”, and “kamsahamnida”. Most of the time we were just speaking gibberish but somehow we all understood eavh other. We even sang her a happy birthday song in Korean!
Thirty minutes before the powerful Magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck my beloved Cebu Province, I was just scrolling through TikTok and laughing at some videos that came up in my For You Page. Then, suddenly, the earthquake happened. I did not know what to do at that time. I even left my phone on my bed because I was panicking. Before the power went out, the last thing that I saw was the cabinet and TV about to fall. I was genuinely scared, I kept screaming my mom's name and crying while trying to get out of my room. Thankfully, my mom reached for my hands and she pulled me while my father was still in a state of shock.
After the ground stopped shaking, we immediately went outside and went somewhere safe together with our relatives and neighbors. We waited until the morning but I couldn't fall asleep because I was scared about what might happen to me and to my family if I fell asleep.
Two days after the earthquake there were still aftershocks but not as powerful as the main earthquake. Almost all of the residents here in Cebu Province was waiting on the roadsides begging for water and foods.
We are so thankful for all of the donors who helped us. May your wallets never run out of money.
It's just sad how some people were mocking our situation. They kept saying that it was our fault that the earthquake happened. But, we can't control earthquakes since ot is a natural disaster. I hope that they will never experience what we went through.
We will never truly understand how bad the situation is until it happens to us.