Jim Gomez
Manila: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake centred at sea shook part of the southern Philippines early on Monday, causing damage in a key coastal city, knocking down power and setting off one metre tsunami waves along nearby coasts, officials said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr asked people to immediately go to higher ground in Philippine areas vulnerable to a tsunami, and Indonesian and Malaysian authorities also issued warnings to their nearby coastal areas.
Agripino Dacera, the disaster management chief in the southern city of General Santos, said authorities were verifying reports of at least five deaths.
It is the strongest earthquake to hit the Philippines this year. It was centred at sea about 13 kilometres south-west of General Santos and was caused by movement in the Cotabato Trench at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. It struck at 7.37am (9.37am AEST), the institute’s director, Teresito Bacolcol said.
“It’s a major earthquake and we’re expecting damages. We’ve already some damaged buildings based on videos we’ve seen,” Bacolcol said.
DZRH radio station in Manila reported that the small commercial building, where its provincial branch was located, partly collapsed and staffers dashed to the ground floor without injuries.
It wasn’t clear if other people were trapped in the rubble of the four-story office building due to the quake, which struck before office hours.
Debris also fell from other buildings, hitting tricycle taxis parked below.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said tsunami waves up to three metres were possible on some coasts of the Philippines. Waves up to one metre were possible on some coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Bacolcol said one-metre waves were monitored in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani by land-based tsunami watch stations. Smaller waves were monitored in at least one other province, he said.
“Please heed the tsunami warning. Move to higher ground now. Do not wait. Your life is more important than anything left behind,” Marcos told people in quake-hit provinces.
“The national government is moving, and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” Marcos said, adding that disaster-response agencies were on standby to respond.
Malaysia’s Meteorological Department issued a tsunami warning for Sabah state on Borneo island. Sabah is just a boat ride away from the southern Philippines.
An 83-centimetre tsunami was measured by a gauge off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
Smaller sea changes were possible in Taiwan, Japan, Papua New Guinea and several island nations and territories in the western Pacific. An advisory for Guam was lifted about two hours after the quake and there was no threat to Hawaii, the PTWC said.
Aftershocks up to 6.5 magnitude followed, the US Geological Survey said. It measured the original quake at 55 kilometres deep. Variations in measurements by different agencies are common in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake.
The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year.
AP, Reuters
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