A powerful earthquake has struck the Philippines, killing at least
six people and injuring more than 120 others amid significant damage.
Officials
are combing through cracked buildings looking for more casualties after
the earthquake struck late on Friday with a magnitude of 6.5.
It roused residents from sleep in Surigao del Norte province and hundreds had to flee their homes.
The earthquake’s centre was about 14 kilometres (eight miles) north
west of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth
of 10km (six miles), said Renato Solidum, of the Philippine Institute of
Seismology and Volcanology.
Nearly 100 aftershocks have been felt, officials said.
Evacuation centres took in worried residents overnight but many have returned home, welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo said.
She said officials were assessing the damage in Surigao city and outlying towns.
Mr Solidum said the earthquake was set off by movement in a segment
of the Philippine fault, which sits in the Pacific so-called Ring of
Fire where tremors and volcanoes are common.
At least six people
were killed, some after being hit by falling debris and concrete walls,
provincial disaster-response official Gilbert Gonzales said.
At least 126 others were injured in Surigao city, about 700km (430 miles) south east of Manila.
“Rescuers
pulled out a man pinned by a collapsed wall in his house but he died
and was no longer brought to a hospital,” Mr Gonzales sad.
TV footage showed the facade of
a number of buildings heavily cracked, their glass windows shattered
with canopies and debris falling on parked cars on the street below.
Rescuers in one building are trying to break a collapsed concrete slab to check if there are people pinned underneath.
Roads had visible cracks in the coastal city and a bridge collapsed in an outlying town.
Rescue teams were checking for possible casualties in the village of Poknoy, part of the city of 140,500 people, officials said.
The city’s airport was temporarily closed due to deep cracks in the runway, aviation officials said.
A
major port in Lipata district also was briefly closed while engineers
checked the stability of an access road, Mr Gonzales said.
“The shaking was so strong I could hardly stand,” coast guard worker Rayner Neil Elopre said.
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