At least 5 dead, 60 hurt after quake rocks Philippines

At least five people were killed and more than 60 injured after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the northern provinces of the Philippines early yesterday.

The quake triggered dozens of landslides and caused massive damage to more than 170 structures, including historic, colonial-era churches.

Yesterday's tremor brought back memories of an earthquake in 1990 that left more than 1,600 people dead after a state-run school and a hotel collapsed in the disaster.

Initial reports suggested that the casualty count this time may not be as high.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the earthquake happened at 8.43am, with the epicentre at about 11km south-east of Dolores town in the mountainous province of Abra.

"Because of the magnitude of the earthquake, we consider it a major event," institute director Renato Solidum said, adding that the earthquake was measured at a depth of 17km. "It is shallow."

The effects of the earthquake were felt in the capital Manila, 300km away. It caused high-rise towers across Metro Manila - an urban sprawl of 16 cities - to shake. Office and government buildings were evacuated, while railway services and schools were shut.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in a news briefing that he was at a meeting when the earthquake struck. "I was in my office when I began hearing clinking sounds from the chandelier. So, we knew it was an earthquake," he said.

He has ordered the dispatch of rescue and relief teams, and said that he plans to fly to the affected areas today.

The most severely impacted areas were Abra and most of the northern parts of the main island of Luzon, including Mr Marcos' home province of Ilocos Norte.

Interior Minister Benjamin Abalos said the earthquake caused damage in 15 provinces, 15 cities and 280 towns. There were at least 58 landslides reported in Abra province alone, he said.

A hospital in Abra was evacuated after it partially collapsed.

"I thought my house would fall," Representative Eric Singson told radio station DZMM.

Senator Imee Marcos, the President's sister, said several churches in the city of Vigan in Ilocos Sur province, a Unesco World Heritage site, were damaged. A centuries-old bell tower in the city was reported to have crumbled.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, who won the Philippines' first Olympic gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games, said the earthquake jolted her from her sleep.

Ms Diaz had held her wedding just the night before and was staying at a hotel in the northern tourist city of Baguio, just south of the epicentre.

"I thought it was my husband moving restlessly in bed. But when the shaking didn't stop, I started praying," she said.

Mr C.J. Garcia, a resident of Bangued, among the worst-hit towns in Abra, said he thought a large vehicle was just passing by when his house started shaking.

But then, the shaking "didn't stop and got stronger. The ground was shaking so violently that it felt like we were being tossed around".

Yesterday's quake was the strongest recorded in the Philippines in years. The Philippines is located along the seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire", a band of volcanoes and fault lines that arcs round the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

In October 2013, a magnitude 7.1 quake struck Bohol province in central Philippines, killing more than 200 people. Nearly 400,000 people were displaced and tens of thousands of houses were damaged.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 1990 created a ground rupture stretching over a hundred kilometres. Most of those killed were in Baguio, where a hotel collapsed. This time, the city was spared.

"We are very fortunate that this wasn't like in 1990," the city's mayor Benjamin Magalong said.