Tremors caused minimal cracks on the walls of 24 classrooms in a three-story building of the Negros Occidental National Science High School (NONSHS) in Victorias City on Wednesday and Thursday, August 24 and 25, Mayor Javier Miguel Benitez said.
The cracks seen on Wednesday were old cracks, but new ones were detected on Thursday, Benitez said.
Benitez said the NONSHS classes were suspended on Wednesday and Thursday, and they may also have to cancel classes on Friday while they are determining the cause of the tremors.
He said the tremors were felt in barangays 10 and 14, and it is off that they were not felt anywhere else in Victorias.
The Victorias City government reported tremors felt in its two barangays 4 p.m. Wednesday and 1 p.m. Thursday but their seismograph did not detect any earthquakes, Andelene Quintia, science research specialist 1 of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology-Kanlaon Observation Station, said.
“We cannot determine what happened in Victorias, usually if it’s tectonic or a fault movement it would be recorded by our equipment,” she said.
Phivolcs has a seismic station in Cadiz, which is the city next to Victorias, and it did no record any earthquake activity, she pointed out.
An inspection of the affected building was being conducted, Benitez said.*