The dark memory of the 1990 Luzon earthquake remains with the survivor

Destruction The collapsed Hyatt Terraces Baguio is arguably the most powerful image to capture the devastation caused by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked North Luzon on July 16, 1990. – INQUIRER PHOTO

KALASIAO, PANGASINAN, Philippines – It took just two minutes for the world to collapse around Roman Valdez, now 59, a survivor of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that turned many parts of Baguio City into chaos at 4:26 p.m. July. 16, 1990.

Valdez was in the Kylie Ballroom at Hyatt Terraces Baguio when the earthquake shook northern Luzon, devastating the summer capital and the cities of Dagopan and Cabanatuan.

For the rest of the country, photos and video footage of the 12-storey Hyatt Terraces collapsing under its weight like an accordion identified the tragedy that killed nearly 2,000 people in Baguio and Cabanatuan, brought down buildings like the Christian College in Cabanatuan in the Philippines, and flooded buildings in Dagopan when it caused Earthquake in soil liquefaction.

In the 31st year since the earthquake, no commemoration date has been set in any of these cities.

Baguio suspended all memorial programs after 2013 due to the ongoing trauma and fears experienced by its residents, although the earthquake has largely shaped the city’s land use policies. The local government is reviewing a comprehensive land-use plan that sets a six-story average ceiling for buildings in most parts of the city but grants exemptions for earthquake-resistant structures.

Mayor Benjamin Magalung on Friday asked Baguio residents to remember the important lessons that resulted from the disaster.

“The experience of the 1990 earthquake should serve as a guide to give a premium to disaster preparedness and environmental conservation,” Magalung said in a statement.

He said the earthquake should serve as “a source of inspiration to rise from whatever havoc life will suffer.”

“The earth moved up and down”

For a generation of Filipinos who neither witnessed the 1990 earthquake nor learned the lessons it conveyed, stories like Valdez’s may not have attracted as much attention.

But for Valdez, who is now head of food and beverage at the four-star Monarch Hotel in Calasiao, Pangasinan, the memory can be as vivid as the day it happened.

Minutes before the earthquake, Valdez said he was at the Hyatt Apartel, waiting for the banquet manager whose office was on the hotel’s second floor.

“It was my day off, but he called me to report because some of the delegates to a seminar at the Nevada were at the Hyatt,” Valdez recalled in a recent interview with The Enquirer.

Like Baggio’s life, the earthquake struck the Nevada Hotel, which was hosting a USAID-sponsored seminar.

HEAVYDAMAGE The Skyworld condominium on Session Road in Baguio City (left) and Magsaysay Bridge in Dagupan City (right) were among the buildings and structures severely damaged by the Luzon earthquake 31 years ago. —EV ESPIRITU and photo reproduction from the JCI DAGUPANINC series.

Valdez said he was bored of waiting, so he headed to the main building to “talk with the other waiters in the banquet hall.”

“I was standing near a cupboard where dinnerware sets were stored when the ground started moving up and down, then swaying from side to side. I had earthquakes that only took seconds, so I expected the shaking to stop.”

“But it got stronger with the second and the walls and ceiling started to vibrate. I ran into the kitchen where the staff entrance was. But when I got in, the kitchen floor broke in the middle and four workers fell through the crack,” Valdez said.

Various accounts put the death toll at the Hyatt at 80, consisting of guests and staff.

Alive

But Hayat was also the place where three hotel employees were pulled alive after rescuers gave up hope.

Luisa Mallorca, a casino employee, and Arnel Calabia, a hotel security guard, were rescued 11 days later while chef Pedrito De was found alive in the rubble 14 days later.

Valdez remembered rushing into the front hall and going down an escalator that no longer worked. He broke through a glass wall while dodging the debris of the collapsed roof.

“If you watched an Indiana Jones movie, it was like that. Your mind is blank but your survival instinct is strong,” Valdez said.

“There was rain, and a thunderstorm, that afternoon, and it was pitch black. But I finally got out of the building.”

Safety drills Earthquake safety drills are now part of school activities in Baguio City to ensure students and residents are prepared as soon as another earthquake strikes. —EV ESPIRITU

He considered himself blessed to have been near the hotel lobby when the earthquake struck. “If I’d stayed in the apartment for a few more minutes, I would be dead. You won’t talk to me now,” he said.

strange scene

The next morning, Valdez saw the collapsed Hyatt, which he described as “a strange sight.”

And remember, cadets of the Philippine Military Academy were sent to help with the rescue. PMA historians are collecting accounts of the tragedy to supplement records on the role of cadets in rescue and retrieval operations in 1990.

But Valdez said the task was daunting for a city completely unprepared for that degree of devastation.

“There was a 9-year-old girl in a room with Yaya’s nanny. She was the daughter of a hotel employee. Her body and that of Yaya, who was hugging her, were found 10 days later.

Those trapped inside the main hotel had to wait weeks to be rescued, Valdez said, citing Dee, a bodybuilder who was at the Hyatt gymnasium when he collapsed.

Lucky to survive Roman Valdez considers himself lucky to have survived the collapse of the Hyatt Terraces Baguio. — Yolanda Sotelo

Valdez said Dee had a similar design to actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but was thin, “like the late [Filipino] Comedian Ballito’ when the chef was pulled over after two weeks.

“But [Dy] Valdez said.

Hotel staff pitched in tents at Ating Tahanan, the Girl Scouts complex in the Philippines, in front of the Hyatt.

nightmares

By that time, all roads to Baguio had become impassable due to extensive damage and landslides, leaving the city cut off. Like many people, Valdez walked for hours on the 46-kilometre Naguilian Trail that connects Baguio to the town of Bauang in La Union province where tricycles are available, until he could make his way back to his family home in San Fabian, Pangasinan.

Valdez said what he experienced during the earthquake made him have nightmares. He would wake up drenched in sweat for the next five years.

“I saw heavy walls smashing over me in my dreams. I saw my dead colleagues,” he said.

But he did not seek professional advice and treatment to address his trauma. “I don “t think so [there was] which one of us [who] I did. The important thing was to find work so that we could feed our families.”

But Hyatt chains in other countries offered jobs to survivors, so Valdez moved to Saipan for a few years before taking on the Monarch job.

“It is true that time can heal all wounds,” he said, although the memory of an earthquake and its devastation may sometimes be so vivid “as if it were only yesterday.”

– Reported by Vincent Capriza

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