7.8 magnitude tremor hits near General Santos
jim gomez
Updated ,first published
Manila: A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the southern Philippines early Monday, causing damage to a major coastal city, knocking out power and generating one-meter tsunami waves on nearby coasts. At least four people were killed and more than 200 were injured.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asked people to immediately move to higher ground in tsunami-vulnerable areas of the Philippines, and Indonesian and Malaysian officials also issued warnings to nearby coastal areas.
The strongest earthquake to hit the Philippines this year. It was centered in the sea about 13 kilometers southwest of General Santos and resulted from movement in the 10-kilometer-deep Cotabato Trough, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Institute director Teresito Bacolcol said the incident took place at 7.37am (9.37am AEST).
“This is a major earthquake and we expect damage. According to the videos we have seen, there are already some damaged buildings,” Bacolcol said.
DZRH radio station in Manila reported that the small commercial building housing its provincial branch partially collapsed and employees were thrown to the ground floor without injury.
It is unclear whether other people were trapped in the rubble of the four-story office building due to the earthquake that occurred before business hours.
Debris also fell from other buildings, hitting tricycle taxis parked below.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of up to three meters were possible along some coasts of the Philippines. Waves of up to one meter were possible off some coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia.
One-meter waves were monitored by onshore tsunami monitoring stations in Bacolcol, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani provinces, he said. He said smaller waves were observed in at least one province.
Marcos said to people in the provinces hit by the earthquake, “Please heed the tsunami warning. Go to higher ground now. Don’t wait. Your life is more important than everything left behind.”
“The national government is taking action, and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” Marcos said, adding that disaster response agencies were ready to respond.
The Malaysian Meteorological Department has issued a tsunami warning for the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. Sabah is just a boat ride away from the southern Philippines.
A tsunami of 83 centimeters was measured off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Smaller sea changes were possible in Taiwan, Japan, Papua New Guinea and some island nations and territories in the Western Pacific. PTWC said the alert for Guam was lifted about two hours after the earthquake and there was no threat to Hawaii.
Aftershocks of up to magnitude 6.5 followed, the US Geological Survey said. He measured the original earthquake at a depth of 55 kilometers. Differences in measurements made by different institutions in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake are common.
The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is frequently exposed to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of seismic faults surrounding the ocean. The archipelago is also the target of approximately 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year.
AP, Reuters
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