A powerful earthquake struck the central Philippines late Tuesday, killing at least 60 people and severely damaging buildings and infrastructure in nearby towns and cities.
The shallow 6.9 magnitude quake struck around 10 p.m. local time, just west of Palompon and close to the city of Bogo in Cebu province.
Emergency services were scrambling to find survivors on Wednesday, with military troops, police and civilian volunteers carrying out door-by-door searches – aided by sniffer dogs, the Associated Press (AP) reported
Civil Defense officials at both the national and local level said at least 60 people had been killed. More than 150 were believed to have been injured.
The hospital in Bogo, a coastal city of around 90,000 people, had been “overwhelmed,” Civil Defense official Raffy Alejandro told reporters. Pictures showed streets in the city littered with debris Wednesday morning.
Workers were trying to transport heavy machinery to assist search and rescue efforts in a cluster of shanties in a mountain village hit by a landslide, Bogo city disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot told AP on Wednesday.
In the town of San Remigio, at least 13 people, including three members of the Philippine Coast Guard and one firefighter, died when a sports complex collapsed during a basketball game, Philippine Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon said in a telephone interview early Wednesday.
“Some churches partially collapsed, and some schools had to be evacuated,” Gordon said. “This was a sleeper,” he said of the late-night quake. “It crept up on us.”
In Daanbantayan, just north of Bogo, the facade of the St. Rita Church collapsed and there was a large crack down the side of the Municipal Hall.
“The current situation in Daanbantayan highlights the severe impact of the earthquake on heritage structures, which form part of Cebu’s rich cultural and spiritual identity,” Cebu Governor Pam Baricuatro said in a post on Facebook.
Footage shared on social media from Cebu showed a fire breaking out at a mall due to the earthquake Tuesday night, as well as a badly damaged McDonald’s. Beauty pageant contestants were seen in another video running off the stage as the earthquake started.
The Philippine Red Cross said there were reports at schools in Cebu of debris, cracks in buildings and a temporary power failure.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), which recorded multiple aftershocks close to the epicenter in the hours after the initial earthquake, canceled a tsunami alert for Leyte, Biliran and Cebu provinces early Wednesday local time.
A minor eruption from the country’s Taal volcano, about 70 km (45 miles) south of central Manila, was also recorded by Phivolcs. It stated that the eruption produced a 2,500-meter-high plume that drifted northwest, but the alert level remains at Level 1.
Governor Baricuatro urged residents to remain calm in a social media video, saying the presidential office confirmed to her it will send immediate aid to Cebu. “Know that the provincial government is doing its best. Help is coming,” she said.
The Medellin municipality in Cebu added in its Facebook post that classes have been suspended until further notice, and work has been suspended until facilities and buildings are assessed.
More than half a million people felt very strong shaking across the Visayan Islands, which include Cebu, Biliran and Leyte, according to estimates from the USGS.
The Philippines sits along the Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile (40,000-kilometer) arc of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean that hosts more than half of the world’s volcanoes.
In 2022, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in northern Luzon, the country’s most populous island, killed at least five and injured over 100 people. In 2019, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake, also in Luzon, killed at least 11.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Avery Schmitz, Thomas Bordeaux and William Branigin contributed to this report.
