More than 100,000 participated in this years first quarter Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRMMC) spokesperson said Friday.

In a text message to the Daily Manila Shimbun, Romina Marasigan, NDRRMC spokesperson, said more than 108,000 people joined.

The ceremonial venue for the drill was held at the Central Command headquarters in Camp Lapulapu, Cebu City.

Marasigan said the drill was led by NDRRMC Executive Director and Civil Defense Administrator Ricardo Jalad, Climate Change Undersecretary Renato Solidum and Cebu provincial board member Miguel Magpale who joined the ceremonial pressing of the button to start of the nationwide earthquake drill.

She also mentioned more than 1000 joined the drill in Cebu City.

More than one thousand (1000) local government officials, government employees, responders, media partners and private individuals performed the duck, cover and hold for a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Cebu City, Marasigan said.

Evacuation was conducted in the area and several drill scenarios namely, collapse structure and high angle search and rescue, fire suppression, vehicular extrication and mass casualty incident were performed, she added.

Marasigan said the first quarter drill aims to test efficiency and usefulness of the preparedness, response and recovery plans, systems and policies developed in various localities and offices.

Specifically, it aims to showcase the interoperability of plans among concerned agencies including the LGUs, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and even the communities, she said.

Through this activity we can see the best practices and the even the gaps to further improve our preparedness measures for a strong earthquake. Also, this exercise could encourage the entire philippine citizenry and the whole of government to further strengthen disaster preparedness initiatives and join the NDRRMC in its continuous effort to build a culture of disaster resilience, Jalad said.

Private offices also participated in Fridays drill.

These includes Mary Johnston Hospital in Tondo where members of Bureau of Fire Protection with the cooperation with the hospitals staff and doctors performed a fire incident scenario in front of the hospitals building around 8:30 am.

The occupants of the Gateway tower in Cubao also did a fire incident scenario and evacuation around 9am which was joined by more or less 1,500 people. Robina Asido/ DMS