Dozens killed after powerful earthquake strikes Philippines

At least 69 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake hit a central Philippine province.

The magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck at about 10pm local time on Tuesday (3pm BST), leaving an unspecified number of residents trapped in collapsed houses, nightclubs and other businesses in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province, officials said.

Rescuers scrambled to find survivors on Wednesday. Army troops, police and civilian volunteers backed by digging equipment and sniffer dogs were deployed to carry out house-to-house searches for survivors.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of three miles, was about 12 miles north-east of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

The death toll in Bogo was expected to rise, according to officials, who said intermittent rain and damaged bridges and roads were hampering the race to save lives.

The Philippine government is considering whether to seek help from foreign governments based on an ongoing rapid damage assessment, officials said.

Workers were trying to transport a backhoe to hasten search and rescue efforts in a cluster of shanties in a mountain village hit by a landslide and boulders, Bogo city disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot said.

“It’s hard to move in the area because there are hazards,” said Glenn Ursal, another disaster-mitigation officer, who added that some survivors were brought to a hospital from the mountain village.

Deaths also were reported from the outlying towns of Medellin and San Remigio, where three coast guard personnel, a firefighter and a child were killed separately by collapsing walls and falling debris while trying to flee to safety from a basketball game in a sports complex that was disrupted by the quake, town officials said.

The earthquake was one of the most powerful to batter the central region in more than a decade and it struck while many people slept or were at home.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology briefly issued a tsunami warning and advised people to stay away from the coastlines of Cebu and the nearby provinces of Leyte and Biliran due to possible waves of up to three feet.

No such waves were reported and the tsunami warning was lifted more than three hours later, but thousands of traumatised residents refused to return home and chose to stay in open grassy fields and parks overnight despite intermittent rains.