MLBB casters recount December 5 earthquake during M5 tilt

MANILA, Philippines – Last December 5, the M5 World Championship Group Stages was in full swing at the EVM Convention Center at Quezon City. It was a very important game for Group B as Turkey's Fire Flux Esports went up against Brazil's RRQ Akira. 

At the turning point of the match-up, as Fire Flux Esports was hoping to take the opener, a notification appeared on the broadcast informing the public of a magnitude 5.9 earthquake, whose epicenter was located 18 kilometers northeast of Lubang town in Occidental Mindoro.

The casters took note of the warning, reminding viewers to stay safe and inform loved ones of the situation, and resuming their attention to the game. Eventually, Game 1 concluded and the broadcast went on a break for initially 10 minutes or so. But then, the timer was reset to over 30 minutes, with many viewers online commenting that the venue might have undergone an evacuation — which host Manjean Faldas confirmed as the broadcast resumed — after organizers had deemed the building safe.

Many unexpected events have happened during different Mobile Legends Bang broadcasts. Usually these are technical difficulties that matches have faced over the years. But it's a bit different when public safety is concerned.

"When it popped up on our screen and we [knew we] had to handle the situation almost immediately because this is an earthquake. We don't know how bad it is, if there was any damage. All we saw was the notification that flashed on our screen," recalled Gideon Khew "GideonQ" Wei Yung, one of the casters for that game.

Giden along with Aiman "Laphel" Kamal and Khaled "Yasu" Farhoud were the members of the English desk, and all three of them said they did not feel the earthquake. Two of the three thought the alert was for the general public and that the earthquake was probably somewhere outside Metro Manila.

"We saw the notification and in my head, at that moment, I thought it was not anywhere near. I thought it was closer to Mindanao or something. I didn't know it was here. So I was like, I hope everyone stays safe and that was it," said Laphel, while Yasu had initially thought it might have been an error.

"When I looked at the other casters, they were like cool and so we addressed the notification. We reminded the viewers to stay safe and contact friends and family that there was an earthquake, and we went back to the game," shared Yasu.

On the other side of the venue, one caster from the Filipino desk had felt the earthquake but initially thought it was just a dizzy spell.

"Nung lumabas yung alert, I was already starting to feel it pero hindi ko siya inisip. Baka kasi nahihilo lang ako. Tas nung lumabas yung notification, nanlaki yung mata ko," admitted Hans "Sonah" Christian Galeria.

He along with Theo "Uomi" Ignacio and Chantelle "Chantelle" Hernandez were manning the Filipino desk and had done the same thing the English casters did, reminding viewers to stay safe.

"The last thing we want to happen is to incite panic to the viewers and of course to make sure everyone is safe. The best part of all this, before all of this happened, everyone in the production was pretty much prepared because we have protocols in place," said Uomi.

Besides ensuring people's safety, the other thing the casters wanted to make sure was to not cause anyone panic.

"When you're a public face and talking to millions of people, the majority aren't even affected by the situation, you don't want to cause panic. The first thing you want to not do in situations like these is not panic, and that applies to a lot of things. As long as people don't panic and calmly address situations then usually there's very minimal casualties, if not no casualties at all," said Gideon.

Hans agrees with his fellow caster, because at that moment when everyone saw the notification, he believed it was the casters who had been at the frontlines.

"We were the frontliners at that moment. Anything we say is something [the audience will] hear and they would react to it one way or another. It's up to us. Kung baga, ito yung mga bagay na ‘di na tinuturo. You just have to think about what's going to be better for the viewers." said Hans.

At the end of the day, the casters all have one duty, keep the show going.

"There's a lot of unspoken rules for casting or being in front of an audience. Whatever happens in front of you, a technical pause or an earthquake notification, you have to act as though it was meant to happen. Everyone should act professional until the end." pointed out Yasu.

"In production, a lot of things can go wrong. If there's a crisis and [the casters] panic, everyone else panics. We've been trained to have a neutral face in these kinds of situations. As a talent, it's something that we take pride in, if the audience doesn't notice then we are doing a good job." added Laphel.

The M5 World Championships in Manila will continue on Friday, December 15.