A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook the southern Philippines on Tuesday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, with local authorities warning of aftershocks and possible damage.
The shallow quake struck around 2 p.m. local time (6 a.m. Lisbon), a few kilometers from the municipality of Maragusan, in the mountainous gold mining province of Davao de Oro, on the island of Mindanao.
Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage than deeper earthquakes, but there were no immediate confirmed reports of major damage.
An official from the Maragusan disaster agency told AFP authorities were checking reports of a landslide on a state highway.
“We have received no reports of further damage or casualties, but we are checking villages around the city. It shook the office, but there was no damage.”he added.
The quake lasted about 30 seconds and was followed by aftershocks, said Corporal Stephanie Clemen of the police in the town of Tagum, about 40 kilometers from Maragusan.
“We immediately crawled under our desks and when the floor stopped shaking, we immediately went outside.”Clemen told AFP. “We are still out because a more moderate earthquake just happened,” he added.
While the quake didn’t appear to have destroyed anything, Clemen said, it was strong enough to “cause fear.”
Phoebe Alberto and her colleagues from the disaster agency in New Bataan Township, adjacent to Maragusan, fled their building when it shook.
“We are still assessing the damage to our building, if it really exists. We are here now,” said Alberto.
Earthquakes occur daily in the Philippines, which lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan to Southeast Asia and across the Pacific Ocean basin.
Most earthquakes are too weak to be felt by humans, but strong and destructive earthquakes strike randomly, with no technology available to predict when and where they will strike.
The country’s civil protection agency conducts regular exercises simulating earthquake scenarios along active fault lines.
The last major earthquake occurred in October in the northern Philippines.
The magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck the mountain town of Dolores in Abra province, injuring several people, damaging buildings and cutting power in most of the region.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake in mountainous Abra last July triggered landslides and cracks in the ground, killing 11 people and injuring hundreds.
Source: DN
