Manila, Philippines — The death toll from a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake in the Philippines rose to at least 32 on Monday after at least 17 people were killed in a southern Philippine province mostly due to a landslide set off by the quake, officials said.
Rene Punzalan, a disaster-mitigation official of Sarangani province told the DZBB radio network that 13 villagers were killed when a landslide set off by the earthquake hit houses in the mountainous town of Glan. Four other villagers died in Sarangani for still-unclear reasons, he said.
This was the strongest earthquake to hit the Philippine archipelago this year. The quake caused small buildings to collapse and sparked small tsunamis in the southern Philippines and smaller waves that were detected in Indonesia and Palau and as far away as southern Japan.
“It’s a major earthquake,” Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said, warning people to seek advice before returning to damaged buildings and houses which could collapse due to aftershocks.
“Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire,” Rod Sosmeña, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, told The Associated Press from the hard-hit port city of General Santos, where he was traveling when the quake struck at 7:37 a.m. “The shaking was very strong and people dashed out of houses into the streets.”
Another regional disaster-response official, Ednar Dayanghirang, told the AP that he was able to “hardly stand and keep my balance when the ground shook as I was leaving my house” in the southern port city of Davao.
General Santos is a port city of more than 700,000 people that is a regional hub for the tuna export industry and other commerce.
It was the strongest quake to strike the Philippines this year, and was was centered at sea off Mindanao, the second most populous island in the Philippines. According to Bacolcol, the quake occurred at a depth of about 20 miles, about 20 miles southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani province.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the depth of the original quake at 34 miles. Variations in measurements by different agencies are common in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake. Aftershocks as strong as 6.5 magnitude were recorded.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the cancellation of classes and directed disaster-response agencies to immediately get to work in quake-hit provinces, saying “the national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind.”
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat of a tsunami largely passed about five hours after the quake. Philippine officials also lifted a tsunami warning by mid-afternoon. Six shanties on stilts were damaged in a coastal village in Zamboanga del Sur due to the quake and taller waves, officials said.
At least 19 people were killed, mostly in collapsed buildings and landslides, while thousands of villagers were displaced, Office of Civil Defense spokesperson Junie Castillo said without providing specific details.
Among the dead were seven people in General Santos, where a few small buildings, including a popular hamburger joint, collapsed or were severely damaged, Sosmeña said.
The other deaths were caused by falling debris, a damaged mosque and a landslide in the southern provinces of Sarangani, South Cotabato and Davao Occidental and on Balut Island, Sosmeña and another reginal disaster-response official, Ednar Dayanghirang, said.
Sosmeña said authorities were checking reports of some students being trapped in a two-story school that collapsed in General Santos. He could not immediately provide details but the national police said at least 12 people were missing in General Santos.
The Bureau of Fire said without elaborating that it was involved in search and rescue efforts in a damaged building and a warehouse in General Santos.
Public schools had reopened nationwide Monday after the summer vacation from April to May. Dayanghirang said more than 100 students attending morning flag-raising ceremonies in his southern region sustained bruises and some fainted in panic.
The international airport in General Santos was temporarily shut, and 17 domestic flights were canceled, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.
The DZRH radio network in Manila reported that a small commercial building where its provincial station was located partly collapsed and staffers dashed to the ground floor without injuries. It wasn’t clear if other people were trapped in the rubble of the four-story office building. Debris also fell from other buildings, hitting tricycle taxis parked below.
Waves of 3 feet were generally monitored in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani. A 4.6-foot wave was monitored at one time in the coastal area of Kiamba town in Sarangani, Bacolcol said.
The quake was also felt in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo island. Sabah is just a boat ride away from southern Philippines. An 2.7-foot tsunami was measured by a gauge off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, and the PTWC said 1-foot waves were measured in Palau.
The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year.
