Is Your Home Safe After an Earthquake in the Philippines? Reading Cracks, Sleeping Through Aftershocks, and What the Landlord and Insurer Cover

The first hour: get out, count heads, do not rush back

The order is: people out first, account for everyone, wait out the aftershocks in the open, get official information, and only then think about going back in.

When the shaking stops, put on shoes because there may be broken glass, take documents, phone, keys and medicine, and go down by the stairs, never the lift. If you smell gas on the way out, close the valve and leave every switch alone. Residents of high floors need time to descend. If an aftershock hits on the way, protect your head where you are, near a structural wall or inside the stairwell, and continue once it passes.

Outside, keep away from the face of the building. Cladding tiles, curtain-wall glass, air-conditioning units and signboards are what come down in aftershocks. Stay clear of poles and boundary walls too.

Account for everyone in the household, including helpers and drivers. Send your family a text to say you are safe; networks clog after a quake and a text gets through more reliably than a call. What relatives abroad can do if they cannot reach you is in how to find family who are unreachable after a disaster.

If you live on the coast and the shaking was strong and long, do not wait for a warning. Move to high ground at once, as the earthquake safety guide explains in detail.

Rely only on bulletins from the national seismology agency, city hall announcements and notices from your building. The administration office will normally send staff to inspect, and until they say residents may return, do not go up on your own. If you truly need medicine or documents, wait for permission, go in daylight, go in pairs, and be quick.

A first judgment of your own: which cracks matter and which are cosmetic

Look at location and pattern, not only width. Diagonal or crossing cracks in columns, beams and load-bearing walls are warning signs. Thin straight cracks in partition plaster and ceiling joints are mostly superficial. This is only a first screen, and anything you are unsure about should be treated as dangerous.

Leave at once and ask for a professional assessment if you see any of these: cracks in a column or beam, especially diagonal or X-shaped ones, or concrete that has broken away to expose steel; a crack that runs right through a wall so that light shows from the other side; a floor slab that has visibly dropped or a new step in the floor level; door and window frames that have distorted so that a door suddenly will not close or open; a lean in the building that you can see with the naked eye; cracking where the stairs meet the floor; or continuing noises from the structure.

More common and usually non-structural: a fine vertical gap where a non-load-bearing partition meets a column or beam; hairline cracks in plaster; displaced ceiling panels; hollow or fallen tiles; broken glass. These need repair but do not normally mean the building is unfit to live in.

Inspect with a torch, working from outside to inside and from bottom to top. Start with the facade and the ground around the foundations, looking for cracking or settlement. Then the ground-floor columns, then the stairwell, and only then your own unit. Photograph everything with a coin or a pen in frame for scale and note the time. Photograph the same spots daily afterwards. A crack that is widening or lengthening is still developing.

Check water pipes, gas lines and wiring as well. The sound of leaking water, a smell of gas or a sparking socket means closing the relevant main valve and reporting it.

Who makes the formal assessment: condominiums, houses and offices differ

A formal conclusion can only come from a qualified structural engineer or the local government's building office. A security guard saying it looks fine does not count.

Condominium towers: the common structure is the responsibility of the condominium corporation or the property management company, which usually engages structural engineers to inspect and then informs residents of the findings. As a resident, whether owner or tenant, you may ask to see the conclusion, and you should hand photographs of cracks inside your unit to the administration office so they are included. If the management does nothing, you can raise the matter with the Office of the Building Official at city hall. Common disputes with management are discussed in disputes with a condominium corporation.

Detached houses: the owner hires a licensed structural engineer or requests an inspection from the Office of the Building Official. A tenant should notify the landlord in writing immediately and let the landlord arrange it.

Offices and factories: the owner or building manager is responsible, and an employer should not require staff to return until the assessment is in.

After a major earthquake, local government organises rapid inspections of affected buildings and posts the result on the structure. The categories generally distinguish buildings that may be used normally, those with restricted use, and those that must not be entered; the exact placard system follows the local announcement. Do not enter a building marked as unsafe to collect belongings. Retrieval requires permission from the authority and is done under escort.

Assessments involve a queue. Engineers are scarce after a large event, and while you wait, the prudent assumption is that the home cannot be occupied.

Where to sleep during aftershocks: three situations, three answers

If there are no signs of structural damage, you can go back, but arrange the home as though an aftershock could come at any moment. If there are doubtful cracks or no assessment yet, sleep somewhere else.

Situation one, your own check finds nothing structural and the building has cleared residents to return: you can stay. Move the bed away from windows and tall cabinets. Keep shoes, a torch, a whistle and a bag with documents, medicine, water and a power bank beside it. Secure or lay down furniture that could topple and take down shelves and frames above the bed. Do not lock the bedroom door. Agree with everyone in the household that each person shelters in place during an aftershock and then meets at a named spot downstairs.

Situation two, doubtful cracks and no assessment yet: do not stay. Go to a friend's home or a hotel in an undamaged part of the city, and prefer a low floor in a newer, visibly well-maintained building. Switch off the breaker and the gas and take documents and valuables with you.

Situation three, the building is marked restricted or unsafe, or the whole district is damaged: use a government evacuation site or leave the affected city. Options when rooms cannot be found are in what to do when you have nowhere to stay after a disaster, and if an evacuation notice is issued, follow what to do when you receive an evacuation order.

Nobody can say precisely how long aftershocks will continue. Their frequency and strength generally decline over time, though a strong one cannot be ruled out. Follow official seismology bulletins and ignore rumours naming a date and hour for another large quake; no agency can forecast with that precision.

If you live below a slope or a cut hillside, aftershocks combined with rain raise the landslide risk. See how to read a landslide warning in mountain areas.

Can a tenant end the lease, and what do the landlord and insurer cover

Structural repair is in principle the landlord's responsibility, while a tenant's own furniture and appliances are generally the tenant's loss. Whether you can leave early and what happens to the rent starts with the lease clauses on force majeure and destruction of the premises.

The first step is written notice to the landlord. Send a description, photographs of the cracks and the date by email or messaging app, and ask for an assessment and repair. A conversation does not count; the written record underpins every later negotiation.

Where an assessment finds the home uninhabitable, a tenant can usually negotiate ending the lease or suspending or reducing rent during repairs, with the deposit and advance rent handled under the lease and by agreement. Where the home is habitable but needs work, negotiate the repair schedule and some allowance for the disruption. The Civil Code contains general rules on the loss or deterioration of leased property, but how they apply in a given case depends on the lease wording and the degree of damage. If you cannot agree, consult a licensed lawyer.

On insurance, keep three points separate. First, in a typical Philippine residential fire policy, earthquake is often an extension that must be added rather than a default inclusion, so check the schedule. Second, a policy taken out by the landlord or the building covers the structure, not a tenant's belongings, which need the tenant's own cover. Third, notification has time limits, so inform the insurer promptly and photograph the damage before cleaning up. The basics of home cover are in whether home insurance is worth it in the Philippines, and the evidence routine is much the same as in the claim process for typhoon damage.

Condominium owners should also expect that repairs to common areas may be funded through a special assessment on unit owners, as decided by the owners' meeting. Consult a licensed lawyer for your individual case; this article is not legal advice.

Documents, visas and moving: what people forget after a quake

If you have to move out, deal with three things: retrieve your documents, update the address held by immigration and your employer, and keep evidence of why you left.

If documents are inside a building you may not enter, do not force your way in. Apply to the authority for escorted retrieval. If they cannot be recovered or are destroyed, follow the order in what to do when documents are destroyed in a disaster. For passports, Chinese nationals contact their embassy or consulate; see how consular assistance works in the Philippines.

If a visa expires after the quake while an immigration office is temporarily closed or you cannot travel, keep the local government's situation bulletin, a photograph of the inspection placard, and records from your hotel or evacuation site, and act as soon as offices reopen. For work visa holders whose workplace is damaged and closed, neither the employment relationship nor the visa status changes automatically, but a prolonged shutdown calls for a conversation with the employer about what comes next.

After moving, update your address wherever it is recorded: your employer's HR records, your bank, and immigration where reporting an address is required.

Whether relief and disaster certification are open to foreigners is covered in whether foreigners can receive disaster relief.

Yixing is a private consultancy registered in the Philippines (SEC Registration No. CS202009551; BI Accreditation No. CA-202624381-1, valid to 2027-06-30; also accredited by DOLE and PRA) and is not part of any government office. We do not perform structural assessments or act on insurance claims. What we can assist with is visa extensions and supporting explanations after a quake, the process for replacing documents, and settling into a new home. See settling-in support. On building safety, rely on the structural engineer and the competent authority.