The ground has not yet stilled in the Philippines. Hundreds of aftershocks continue to jolt the archipelago, a grim reminder that nature's violence rarely arrives as a single blow. Officials warn that the death toll, already harrowing, may rise as rescue teams dig through the rubble of collapsed buildings and landslide-blocked roads.
For the communities in the hardest-hit regions, the terror is not just in the initial quake but in the relentless shaking that follows, each tremor a fresh wave of anxiety. I spoke to Maria, a fish vendor from a coastal town, who told me: 'We sleep outside now. Every time the ground moves, we think it is the end again.
' Her eyes held the exhaustion of someone who has lost count of the aftershocks. This is the human cost beneath the seismic data: families huddled in makeshift shelters, children who cannot stop crying, and a slow dread that the earth might not be done with them yet.
