A massive 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern Philippines on Friday, killing at least six people, collapsing structures and sending residents fleeing in panic before tsunami warnings were later lifted.
The quake hit about 20 kilometres (12 miles) off Manay town in the Mindanao region at 9:43am, according to the United States Geological Survey.
It came just 11 days after a magnitude-6.9 earthquake killed 75 people and injured more than 1,200 in Cebu province, according to official data.
Three miners tunnelling for gold were killed when their shaft collapsed in the mountains west of Manay, rescue official Kent Simeon of Pantukan town told AFP. One miner was pulled out alive and several others were injured, he said.
“Some tunnels collapsed, but the miners managed to get out. In that particular area, only one incident was reported,” Simeon said, adding that rescuers were withdrawing from the remote site of Gumayan, accessible only by dirt bikes.
In Mati city, the largest urban centre near the epicentre, one person was killed when a wall collapsed, while another suffered a fatal heart attack, local officials said.
A separate fatality was reported in Davao city, more than 100 kilometres west of the epicentre, a city government statement said without giving details.
Philippine authorities issued a tsunami warning shortly after the quake, ordering evacuations along the eastern seaboard where waves of up to three metres (10 feet) were feared.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center lifted its own alert for the Philippines, Palau and Indonesia at around noon, saying there was “no longer a tsunami threat”.
‘People screamed and ran’
Wes Caasi, a local official in Tagum city, northwest of Manay, told AFP that a government event at the city hall descended into chaos as panicked attendees fled. “They screamed and ran.”
Confirming videos that circulated on social media, Caasi said she saw city workers scrambling down a metal Christmas tree they were decorating when the quake struck.
Other witnesses said they saw students and workers pouring out of schools, office buildings and shopping malls— though some footage shared on social media proved to be misinformation.
Many Visayan-language posts shared footage of a crane falling from a building and imagery of destroyed buildings, but AFP fact-checkers found both visuals predated the tremor.
So far, the tremors seem to have caused minor and scattered damage, according to witnesses.
More than 100 aftershocks were recorded, some reaching magnitude 5.0.
Dianne Lacorda, a police officer in Davao Oriental province, told AFP that power and communication lines were down, hampering damage assessments.
The provincial government said on Facebook that it had suspended classes “until further notice” and sent non-essential public workers home.
‘Shaking was so strong’
Christine Sierte, a teacher in the town of Compostela near Manay, told AFP she was in the middle of an online meeting when the violent shaking started.
“It was very slow at first, then it got stronger… That’s the longest time of my life. We weren’t able to walk out of the building immediately because the shaking was so strong,” she said.
“The ceilings of some offices fell, but luckily no one was injured,” she said, adding that some of the school’s approximately 1,000 students “suffered panic attacks and difficulty in breathing”.
Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
An 8.0-magnitude quake off Mindanao island’s southwest coast in 1976 unleashed a tsunami that left 8,000 people dead or missing in the Philippines’ deadliest single natural disaster.
Powerful 7.4-magnitude quake hits southern Philippines, kills six
