A powerful earthquake struck the southern Philippines yesterday, crushing two people under debris, cracking buildings and injuring dozens in a region still reeling from a previous deadly tremor.
Terrified locals ran into the streets after the shallow quake, which hit the island of Mindanao as schools and offices opened for the day.
The shaking lasted up to a minute in some areas, damaging homes, multistory buildings and classrooms in a region where hundreds are still displaced by a quake that killed at least five earlier this month.
The Philippines suffers regular tremors as part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
A teenage boy was crushed by a falling wall as he tried to escape his school in Magsaysay, the town spokesman told reporters.
Though other students were injured in “stampede” to escape the building, they survived.
A collapsing wall in another town, Koronadal, killed a 66-year-old man, local authorities told reporters.
At least 50 people were hurt by falling debris, including about seven students and teachers hurt escaping their collapsed elementary school.
Locals were awed by the power of the quake, which was shallow and thus potentially more destructive.
“Buildings were not just moving, they were swaying,” Gadi Sorilla, a doctor at a hospital in Tulunan, a town about 25km from the epicenter, told reporters.
“I asked God for help,” he said, adding that the hospital had quickly received about 10 patients, some with head injuries.
Tulunan Mayor Reuel Limbungan said the local municipal hall had been heavily damaged and authorities had received “lots of reports of injuries.”
Rescue teams have begun fanning out to assess the damage to the region, where electricity and telephone services were knocked out by the earthquake.
The US Geological Survey said the initial magnitude 6.6 earthquake was followed by a number of smaller shakes, including one measuring magnitude 5.8.
The continuing tremors were causing anxiety on the ground, with people refusing to go back inside buildings for fear of being caught in any resulting collapse.
Schools across the area have been shuttered as a precaution.
The area is still suffering the effects of a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit less than two weeks ago, killing at least five people and damaging dozens of buildings.
Residents fled homes across the Mindanao region and a mall caught fire in the city of General Santos shortly after the quake struck on Oct. 16.
“We still have 570 individuals in evacuation centers [from the previous quake] and with this quake, we are expecting more evacuees,” said Zaldy Ortiz, an officer with a local emergency rescue team.
One of the deadliest earthquakes to hit the Philippines recently was in April, causing the collapse of a building near the capital, Manila.
At least 16 people were killed when the building pancaked in the worst-hit Pampanga province.
High-rise structures in the capital swayed after the April quake, leaving some with large cracks in their walls.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS