More than 50 dead after powerful earthquake hits the Philippines Emily BlumenthalOctober 1, 2025 at 12:03 AM 0 Police assist injured residents as they are brought to hospital in Bogo City, Cebu province AFP More than 50 people are dead, including children, after a powerful earthquake struck the Phil...
- - More than 50 dead after powerful earthquake hits the Philippines
Emily BlumenthalOctober 1, 2025 at 12:03 AM
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Police assist injured residents as they are brought to hospital in Bogo City, Cebu province - AFP
More than 50 people are dead, including children, after a powerful earthquake struck the Philippines on Tuesday.
The 6.9-magnitude quake hit off the coast of Cebu island, one of the country's largest urban areas, just before 10pm local time (3pm BST).
Around 154 people have been injured and rescue operations remain under way to save those trapped beneath collapsed buildings.
Several government buildings have been damaged, a spokesman for the island's government told The New York Times, and widespread power outages have been reported.
A damaged McDonald's in Bogo City - AP
The Archdiocesan Shrine of Santa Rosa de Lima, a 140-year-old church and city landmark, partially collapsed during the quake.
The church confirmed in a statement on its Facebook page that the majority of the artwork inside had been damaged as the tremors turned most of the building to rubble.
The quake is the country's deadliest since 2013, when 222 people died and nearly 1,000 were injured in Mindanao, a southwestern region. The US Geological Survey recorded Tuesday's earthquake at a depth of 10km.
Phivolcs, a government agency which collects data on natural disasters, reported hundreds of smaller aftershocks in and around the Visayas region, where Cebu is located.
Pamela Baricuatro, the governor of the island of Cebu, said in a video on social media that residents should "stay calm and move to open areas; keep away from walls or structures that may collapse and stay alert for aftershocks", the Philippine Inquirer reported.
The spokesman for Cebu told The New York Times that Ms Baricuatro had ordered the distribution of water and medicine to those affected by the quake, and for relief efforts to clear roads that had been made impassable.
'State of calamity'
Smaller towns around Cebu City were among the hardest hit, including the municipalities of San Remigio and Bogo City.
The Bogo hospital listed 53 confirmed deaths, 30 of them from Bogo.
In San Remigio, several of the victims – including a firefighter and members of the Philippine coast guard – were reportedly playing basketball inside a sports facility when it collapsed during the quake, local media reported.
Police and rescuers inspect the damage at an indoor sports facility in the town of San Remigio - AFP
A child was also found dead in another town under rubble after a wall collapsed while they were asleep, according to the Philippine Inquirer.
Jan Elcid Layug, the police captain in San Remigio, told the newspaper that "all of San Remigio has sustained quite a lot of damage".
Officials in San Remigio declared a "state of calamity" and said it planned to mobilise resources to alleviate the "widespread damage and disruption to the lives of our constituents", a statement on the municipality's Facebook page read.
In the town of San Fernando, residents reported feeling strong shaking and buildings swaying as the quake hit.
"We felt the shake here in our station, it was so strong. We saw our locker moving from left to right, we felt slightly dizzy for a while but we are all fine now," Joey Leeguid, a firefighter, told AFP.
Several buildings and homes have been destroyed - AP
A 65-year-old carer on Bantayan Island, just off the coast of Cebu, told the Philippine Inquirer that the tremors cracked the tiles in her kitchen.
"It felt as though we would all fall down. The neighbours all ran out of their homes. My two teenage assistants hid under a table because that's what they were taught in the boy scouts," Agnes Merza said.
Phivolcs had warned of a possibility of "unusual waves" and advised the public to stay away from the coast in the areas of Cebu, Leyte and Biliran, before cancelling the notice two hours later.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines because of its position in the Ring of Fire, an area in the Pacific which has a high level of tectonic activity.
In December 2023, a 7.6-magnitude quake and two powerful aftershocks struck the country's south, just two weeks after another shock killed nine people and caused a shopping mall to partially collapse.
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