By Aaron Recuenco and Martin Sadongdong Authorities declared on Saturday that there are no longer people trapped inside the Chuzon supermarket in Pampanga that collapsed during Monday’s 6.1 magnitude quake. An unidentified man (in yellow shirt) was rescued from the collapsed four-storey Chuzon Supermarket at Porac, Pampanga after it was hit by a 6.1 magnitude earthquake. The man was rescued after 16 hours. Rescuers are still trying to save the lives of survivors still trapped under the rubble. (MARK BALMORES / MANILA BULLETIN) Police Colonel Bernard Banac, PNP spokesperson, said authorities were already at the stage of clearing the debris at the collapsed supermarket to make sure that no more bodies will be recovered at the site. "Yes, confirmed Regional Director Marlou Salazar made the announcement after a 7 a.m.-mass there. Clearing of debris na po sila ngayon," Banac told the Manila Bulletin. There are still five people in the missing list and Col. Jean Fajardo, director of the Pampanga Provincial Police Office, Director Edgar Posadas, spokesman for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), said they are now conducting verification to determine if indeed the five reported missing went to the supermarket when it collapsed. "Wala na pong nakita doon na either buhay o patay. Sa missing, hindi naman talaga doon nawala. May nagreport lang sa local government na may nawawala so hindi po nakuha ang pangalan kung sino ang mga nagreport (We no longer saw either alive or dead persons in the area. As to the missing persons, they did not go missing . There were some reports from the local government that there are missing persons but they were not able to get the names of the reportees)," Fajardo disclosed in a phone interview. Banac said police have coordinated with the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central Luzon (DWSD-Region 3) to expedite the search for the five missing persons. "The validation of the said missing persons is continuous. For now, the Pampanga PNP is checking if the residents are all accounted for because some village chiefs were saying that there were no missing persons in their barangays," Banac said. "If there are no missing persons in Pampanga, they will coordinate with the DSWD to determine whether there are missing persons outside the province," he added. The four-storey supermarket collapsed after a magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Luzon and Metro Manila Monday, April 22, with its epicenter located in Castillejos, Zambales. The most devastated area was Pampanga, which, according to experts, was founded on soft soil due to lahar deposits. At least 30 people were initially reported to be inside the four storey-building that housed the Chuzon supermarket when it collapsed, triggering a massive search and rescue operations. But as of Saturday morning, the Chuzon supermarket was already declared as cleared of both survivors and any cadavers from the debris, according to Col. Fajardo. “There was already a declaration by the Office of Civil Defense Region 3 that the collapsed building was already cleared of any person. All the necessary checks were already done and it was declared that the area was already cleared,” Fajardo told the Manila Bulletin in a phone interview. “Teams in the area also went on with clearing of the debris both for safety reason and to make sure that there was nobody pinned, or left from the rubbles,” she added. A total of five cadavers were pulled out of the Chuzon supermarket. All the nearly 100 employees of the store were already accounted for. What they would do, according to Fajardo, is to tap all the local authorities in Pampanga and nearby provinces to look for the missing persons in other areas. Posadas, for his part, said the remaining missing persons may have been misdeclared to be in Chuzon supermarket. “There were instances that those listed to be missing at the Chuzon turned out to be in other places, alive. This is the reason why the number of missing list continue to reduce,” said Posadas in a separate phone interview. A total of 18 people were reported dead and 242 other injured when the strong earthquake jolted Central Luzon, Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon. While the epicenter was located in Zambales, the province of Pampanga was the hardest hit, with almost all casualties reported, especially in Porac and Lubaot towns. Damage Posadas said that based on the initial assessment, the earthquake cost of damage was pegged at P505 million. “But this is just an initial assessment, we expect the figure to rise as the assessments in the affected areas are finalized,” said Posadas. A total of 334 structures were damaged in Central Luzon, Metro Manila, Ilocos Region and Cavite, Laguna and Rizal. These include roads and bridges and school buildings. Homeless A total of 1,549 houses were damaged as a result of the tremor in Bataan and Pampanga, 162 of them are totally damaged while 1,387 were partially damaged. But some of those whose houses were partially damaged opted to remain in the evacuation centers or stay with their relatives. A total of 3,632 families or 17,410 persons were affected by the earthquake in 41 barangays of Central Luzon. Of the figure, 986 families or 3,771 persons are staying in evacuation centers.