Death toll rises to 60 after strong earthquake strikes central Philippines
An estimated 60 people have been confirmed killed and almost 150 injured after a powerful magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck off the coast of the central Philippine island province of Cebu, Al Jazeera reports.
The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at 9:59pm local time on Tuesday (13:59 GMT) off Cebu Island’s northern tip near Bogo, a city of some 90,000 residents, and was followed by four earthquakes of magnitude 5 or higher in the area after the first tremor.
Rafaelito Alejandro, the deputy administrator of the Philippines Office of Civil Defence, confirmed the new death toll on Wednesday, a steep increase on the 26 people reported killed earlier by the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
“We are receiving additional numbers of reported casualties, so this thing is very fluid. We are receiving reports [that] as high as 60 individuals are reported to have perished in this earthquake,” Alejandro told reporters in Manila.
Local authorities have declared a “state of calamity” in parts of Cebu, according to local news outlets.
The quake caused power outages and brought down buildings. Local television showed motorcycle riders being forced to dismount from their bikes and hold onto the railings as a Cebu bridge rocked violently.
The Cebu provincial government put out a call on its official Facebook page for medical volunteers to assist in the aftermath of the quake.
“We are still assessing the damage,” Pamela Baricuatro, the governor of Cebu, said in a video posted on social media.
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“But it could be worse than we think,” Baricuatro said, adding that she has been in touch with the president’s office and is asking for aid.
Baricuatro later said that an unspecified number of houses and a hospital were damaged, and that emergency medical teams were being deployed to treat residents who were pinned down and injured.
“We’re sending already a trauma team there. Doctors and nurses are on the way,” the governor told the DZMM radio station. “We need medicine, food, medical teams.”
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology urged residents in the provinces of Cebu, Leyte and Biliran to stay away from the coast due to a “minor sea level disturbance”, and to “be on alert for unusual waves”.
Earlier it was reported, at least 26 killed as powerful earthquake strikes central Philippines.