SURIGAO, PHILIPPINES: Thousands of residents of a city in the southern Philippines huddled on the streets Sunday, two days after a deadly quake, as aftershocks continued to hit the region.
The 6.5-magnitude quake struck Surigao and nearby areas of Mindanao island late Friday, killing six people and injuring more than 200 others, with more than a thousand homes destroyed or damaged, according to officials.
People who had fled their damaged homes wrapped themselves in blankets and sacks for a second night as they slept side by side on the pavement on Saturday, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
The state seismology office in Manila said it had recorded 130 weaker quakes in Surigao, a city of 152,000 people, and in the predominantly agricultural region around it since the quake struck.
However authorities said there were no reports of further casualties or damage.
Early on Sunday, long lines of people carrying pails and jugs queued for water rations supplied by fire trucks after the quake cut off tap water supply.
“We’re still being hit by aftershocks, and as of now we do not have tap water supply. The people are suffering,” provincial information officer Mary Escalante told ABS-CBN television in an interview.
“Buildings that suffered structural damage have been closed,” she said, adding some schools and gyms that were meant to serve as evacuation centers were among those damaged by the quake.
The quake also damaged bridges and roads and knocked out the power supply, though electricity was restored in most of Surigao on Saturday.
President Rodrigo Duterte was scheduled to visit the city on Sunday to inspect the damage and lead the relief effort, officials said.
An average of five earthquakes, most of them undetectable except through instruments, hit daily across the Philippines, which lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.
The last lethal quake that hit the country measured 7.1-magnitude. It left over 220 people dead and destroyed historic churches when it struck the central islands in October 2013.
Aftershocks rock Philippines quake city
Aftershocks rock Philippines quake city
SpaceX acquires xAI in record-setting deal as Musk looks to unify AI and space ambitions
- The deal is the biggest M&A transaction of all time
- Deal values xAI at $250 billion, SpaceX at $1 trillion
Elon Musk said on Monday that SpaceX has acquired his artificial-intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal that unifies Musk’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot. The deal, first reported by Reuters last week, represents one of the most ambitious tie-ups in the technology sector yet, combining a space-and-defense contractor with a fast-growing AI developer whose costs are largely driven by chips, data centers and energy. It could also bolster SpaceX’s data-center ambitions as Musk competes with rivals like Alphabet’s Google, Meta, Amazon-backed Anthropic and OpenAI in the AI sector.
The transaction values SpaceX at $1 trillion, and xAI at $250 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!” Musk said. The purchase of xAI sets a new record for the world’s largest M&A deal, a distinction held for more than 25 years when Vodafone bought Germany’s Mannesmann in a hostile takeover valued at $203 billion in 2000, according to data compiled by LSEG. The combined company of SpaceX and xAI is expected to price shares at about $527 each, another person familiar with the matter said. SpaceX was already the world’s most valuable privately held company, last valued at $800 billion in a recent insider share sale. XAI was last valued at $230 billion in November, according to the Wall Street Journal. The merger comes as the space company plans a blockbuster public offering this year that could value it at over $1.5 trillion, two people familiar with the matter said.
SpaceX, xAI and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal further consolidates Musk’s far-flung business empire and fortunes into a tighter, mutually reinforcing ecosystem – what some investors and analysts informally call the “Muskonomy” – which already includes Tesla, brain-chip maker Neuralink and tunnel firm the Boring Company. The world’s richest man has a history of merging his ventures together. Musk folded social media platform X into xAI through a share swap last year, giving the AI startup access to the platform’s data and distribution. In 2016, he used Tesla’s stock to buy his solar-energy company SolarCity.
The agreement could draw scrutiny from regulators and investors over governance, valuation and conflicts of interest given Musk’s overlapping leadership roles across multiple firms, as well as the potential movement of engineers, proprietary technology and contracts between entities.
SpaceX also holds billions of dollars in federal contracts with NASA, the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, which all have some authority to review M&A transactions for national security and other risks.
