It is different now. Development has reached most corners of the country that any big movement would cause a tremendous amount of damage to property and loss of lives.

As if the successive earthquakes which have hit Cotabato and many other areas in Mindanao are not enough yet for its people, there is still a big possibility of an even stronger tremor to hit the island soon.

When it would come is the question, though.

From the Americas to the Philippines, we are all waiting for that “Big One.” Or do we really need to wait?

Luzon had experienced a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on 16 July 1990, causing heavy damage on many properties in Metro Manila and the central and northern provinces.

But it sent the national and various local governments to review their building codes, and it resulted in more structurally sound buildings being constructed in the years that followed.

That was the one thing positive which arose from that.

We can hope that the recent Mindanao quake would also birth rules and codes that would prevent yet another experience of a building collapsing with future tremors.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) is not wanting in reminders. Just recently, it told the public to be ready for anything.

A much stronger 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the same area where three earthquakes in very close proximity had struck could happen anytime, the Phivolcs said.

“Based on the length of this fault in Cotabato, it’s capable of generating a 7.2 magnitude earthquake,” Dr. Toto Bacolcol, associate scientist at Phivolcs, said.

A 7.2 magnitude is considered a “Big One,” like what Metro Manila is expecting from the West Valley Fault. If it comes, it is expected to claim 34,000 lives.

Cotabato would not sacrifice that many. It has a smaller population and the number of buildings there is not much compared to the big cities. But a “Big One” is no easy matter to deal with.

The destruction caused by the three successive quakes in Mindanao could not be measured yet as there is no quantifiable amount of damage available as of this writing, but it will be enormous. That is for sure.

More than 400 aftershocks have been recorded since the first earthquake transpired two weeks ago. But all these could be mere foreshocks to the “Big One.”

The Phivolcs would like to be proven wrong.

“It’s the first time that we’ve had several strong earthquakes in a span of a few weeks,” Bacolcol said.

The earthquakes on 16, 29 and 31 October are related and Phivolcs does not want any stone unturned in looking for the clues.

The faults in the affected areas are very close to each other, it said.

“It’s possible that one fault would trigger another fault to move. We call that stress transfer,” Bacolcol said in a radio interview.

And still, there could be “blind faults.” The name is obvious as they are not easily seen.

One of the strongest earthquakes that shook Mindanao was a 7.9 magnitude one in 1976. It was caused by the Cotabato Trench.

More than 6,000 people died in that disaster with 2,000 more missing.

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake also struck Lanao in 1955, leaving 400 dead. That number could be small, but the population then was sparse and there were no tall buildings yet in the area.

Development has reached most corners of the country that any big movement would cause a tremendous amount of damage to property and loss of lives.

We have to be ready, though. Even if we know that no one can be that well-prepared.

Photos of a damaged hotel in Kidapawan hit the headlines last week.

It was eerily reminiscent of a time when, in Baguio City, a big hotel was hard-hit by a major earthquake that was felt all the way to Metro Manila.

That happened on 16 July 1990. The northern fixture has long been gone, under its rubble buried the souls who had perished in the deadly quake.

The southern edifice will no doubt also be a thing of the past, perhaps razed out of sight, a new structure rising once more.

But the image of those once-grand buildings — cracked, leaning, broken down, destroyed — should not only fill us with sorrow, but raise within the determination to prepare better, as much as anyone can in the face of calamity.

You see, we already know the Philippines lies on the Ring of Fire. We have already been warned, countless times, that we could get shaken anytime, and possibly that dreaded “Big One” could end it all.

What have we done about this information so far?

Intermittent emergency drills, some effort to promote knowledge via media, public service announcements and reminders to people to check their surroundings and prepare “go bags” — are these enough? Will they be useful come a time when you are shaking along with the ground, rooted in panic?

When the series of Mindanao quakes happened, casualties included a village elder who was trapped under the village hall that “collapsed on him”; a child of seven years who was “crushed under falling debris”; and two adults “buried under a landslide.”

Clearly, if it isn’t a tsunami, then it’s weak or brittle structures and danger zones that will get you.

The Mindanao quakes are warnings to us all. In a month, earthquakes hit the region. A 6.3 magnitude quake was recorded on 16 October, then a 6.6 tremor and a 6.5 one followed some days later.

Those were pretty powerful shakers, and understandably, people are dreading an even bigger one soon.

There are, after all, several fault zones in the region “capable of producing major earthquakes and destructive local tsunamis,” a report says.

The last “Big One” that hit Mindanao happened in 1976 — the Moro Gulf quake that killed 5,000 to 8,000 people.

Other tremors had come and gone, but they seemed concentrated more in Luzon. But there are two highly dangerous fault lines in the Sulu Sea area that experts are watching closely now following the recent quakes.

Already, “More than 12,000 people are sheltered in 19 evacuation centers, and over 2,000 houses have been totally or partly damaged,” according to our national disaster agency.

How will we cope if a bigger one comes? Will it be like the “Yolanda” experience, which swept away all illusions that our government is capable and well-equipped to deal with huge and costly misfortune?

According to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, the southern region of the Philippines “is characterized by moderate to high seismicity.”

It means shakes and rattles are still bound to happen, and the same goes for areas in Luzon, especially Metro Manila — congested, overdeveloped, overpopulated.

In Mindanao, where the recent series of quakes threw disaster aid teams for a loop, we learned that more must be done in terms of preparation and training.

Panic “threw ongoing aid efforts into chaos,” one report describes it.

The need for more emergency items — tents, water, food packs and medicine — came glaringly into the picture.

It is fortunate that no problems were caused by the latest earthquakes on communication and mobility, but these are aspects that also need to be assessed for calamity preparations.

The checklist is long if we really think about it: water, food, medicine, shelter, power, communication. Then there is training, not only of emergency crews, but the citizens themselves, for disaster situations. We need a plan — a very detailed and effective plan.

It would do us well to find out more about this matter than be left totally helpless and unprepared if a time comes when all our resources and stores of courage and resilience will be called upon. There’s no point in being rattled.