A 6.7 magnitude shallow earthquake struck the central Philippines on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geology Center USGS, damaging buildings while no casualties have been reported so far. The earthquake occurred at 8:03 a.m. (12:03 a.m. GMT) 68 kilometers from the town of Masbate, in the Visayas Islands region, and 10 km below the earth's surface, the USGS said.
"It was very strong" and "there are a lot of damaged houses," said Antonio Clemente, Staff Sergeant of Cataingan, a town on the very poor island of Masbate, several kilometers from the epicenter in the Sea of Samar. In rural and poor areas of the Philippines, houses are built with weak materials such as wood. This earthquake comes as the archipelago faces an increase in the number of coronavirus cases and that restrictive measures, different depending on the region, are in force.
"It was powerful, stunning"
In the nearby town of Palanas, police chief Alvin Guerina told AFP that several patients, including a woman about to give birth, had been evacuated from the hospital as a preventive measure in case there would be aftershocks. The American institute estimated that the probability that this earthquake caused casualties and damage was low. But "recent earthquakes in this region have caused ripple damage, such as landslides," he said in a statement. In the town of Iloilo, in the western Visayas, some 400 km southwest of Masbate, residents hastily left their homes. "It was powerful, dizzying," a local police official, Colonel Eric Dampal, told AFP. "Almost all of the people who were in the buildings rushed to the streets. So far, they are still there," he added. Other witnesses in the eastern Visayas reported a "strong, but very short" tremor.
The Philippines lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where colliding tectonic plates cause frequent earthquakes and significant volcanic activity.
In December, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the southern Philippines' large island of Mindanao, killing at least three people, injuring dozens and damaging buildings.