The death toll from a magnitude 6.9 quake in the central Philippines has risen to 31, local officials say.
Thirteen were killed in Bogo, a city of 90,000 people near the northern tip of Cebu island and close to the epicentre, Bogo rescuer Cherry Oliamot told AFP.
One other person was killed in the Cebu town of Tabuelan, according to its mayor, in addition to five fatalities rescuers earlier reported in the town of San Remigio to its north.
The 6.9-magnitude quake struck off the coast of the central Philippines late on Tuesday (local time), wrecking roads and buildings and knocked out power in parts of the region, local authorities said.
Three of the dead in Bogo were killed when a landslide triggered by the quake hit their homes, rescue official Rexan Ygot told AFP.
Four bodies were pulled from a sports centre in San Remigio, while a child was crushed by debris in another area of the town, Manila television network ABS-CBN reported from the scene.
“There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,” he told AFP, citing rescue efforts under way in the town of San Remigio and Bogo, a city near the epicentre with 90,000 residents. He said he did not know how many people were missing.
Recovery efforts were being hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, he added. The USGS has recorded four quakes of magnitude 5.0 or higher since the first tremor.
The local seismology office warned of a possible “minor sea-level disturbance” and urged residents of the central islands of Leyte, Cebu and Biliran to “stay away from the beach”.
The epicentre of the quake was off the northern tip of Cebu island and near Bogo, a city of more than 90,000 people, according to a Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, adding it expected damage and aftershocks.
Cebu firefighter Joey Leeguid told AFP from San Fernando town: “We felt the shake here in our station, it was so strong. We saw our locker moving from left to right, we felt slightly dizzy for a while but we are all fine now.”
Martham Pacilan, a 25-year-old resident of the resort town of Bantayan, near the epicentre, said he was at the town square near a church when the quake struck.
“I heard a loud booming noise from the direction of the church then I saw rocks falling from the structure. Luckily no one got hurt.
“I was in shock and in panic at the same time but my body couldn’t move, I was just there waiting for the shake to stop.”
Agnes Merza, 65, a carer based in Bantayan, said her kitchen tiles had cracked.
“It felt as though we would all fall down. It’s the first time I have experienced it. The neighbours all ran out of their homes. My two teenage assistants hid under a table because that’s what they were taught in the Boy Scouts.”
The USGS had reported a magnitude reading of 7.0, before revising it down.
The Cebu provincial government reported a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a number of village roads were damaged.
However the fact the quake struck at 9.59 pm local time (about 3am NZT) meant the buildings were likely not occupied at the time.
The quake caused power lines to trip, leading to outages across Cebu and nearby central islands, the National Grid Corp of the Philippines said in an advisory, adding it was still assessing the extent of the damage.
In a live video message on her official Facebook account, Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro urged residents to “stay calm and move to open areas; keep away from walls or structures that may collapse and stay alert for aftershocks.
She said the provincial government was assessing the situation and reaching out to municipal officials. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no tsunami threat.
Meanwhile, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s main island of Java late Tuesday (3.50am today NZT), the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, with no immediate reports of damages.
The epicentre of the quake, which struck around 11:49 pm (1649 GMT), was around 156 kilometres east of Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, at a depth of 13.9 kilometres, according to the USGS.
The jolt was felt around the East Javan town of Sidoarjo, where an Islamic school building collapsed a day earlier, killing at least three people, with rescuers still racing to save dozens of victims trapped underneath piles of concrete rubble. It was not immediately clear whether the rescue operation was affected.
The quake prompted hotel guests staying in Sidoarjo to flee their rooms.
“I was still awake, still working when I suddenly saw the lamp swaying left and right,” Indah Irianti, 42, told AFP.
“I got scared and I ran outside. I am traumatised by earthquakes because I experienced a massive one a few years ago in Jakarta.”
There was no tsunami threat from the quake, according to Daryono, director of earthquake and tsunami of the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG).
Daryono, who goes by one name like many Indonesians, said that as of 00:29 Jakarta time, four aftershocks were recorded, including one with 4.4 magnitude.
Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the two nations, which are on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
- Agence France-Presse