Baguio remembers 1990 killer quake

BAGUIO CITY — Twelve-year-old Jane Anoma Sannadan, a sixth grader at the Loakan Elementary School, lights a candle at the shrine of Our Lady of the Brown Madonna in Tuba, Benguet to commemorate the July 16, 1990 earthquake that killed 1,621 Baguio residents and virtually flattened this city and the adjoining provinces of La Union and Pangasinan.

Jane was one of 12 babies born that fateful day, minutes after the Intensity 7.8 temblor struck at about 2:26 p.m. No wonder her parents gave her the nickname ‘Shaky.’

Elsewhere in Baguio, the rest of the ‘quake babies’ lit candles and offered prayers yesterday at the sites of establishments destroyed by the catastrophic earthquake.

Other commemorative activities included the planting of pine seedlings around the city, particularly at the Busol watershed, and the release of ‘spirit boats’ at the Burnham Park lake. – Artemio Dumlao