A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of the northern Philippines, injuring at least 36 people and forcing the closure of an international airport and the evacuation of patients in a hospital, officials said yesterday.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said that Tuesday night’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake, which was set off by movement in a local fault, was centered 9km northwest of Lagayan in Abra province at a depth of 11km.
The US Tsunami Warning System said that no warning or advisory was issued.
Photo: AP
The quake was felt across a wide area of the main northern Luzon region, including in some parts of metropolitan Manila, more than 400km south of Abra.
At least 10 people received mostly minor injuries in Abra, mainly from falling debris, and 26 were injured in Ilocos Norte, the home province of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The international airport in Ilocos Norte’s capital, Laoag, was closed yesterday due to damage from the quake and at least two domestic flights were canceled, police and civil aviation officials said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In Batac, also in Ilocos Norte, patients were moved out of the province’s largest hospital after parts of the ceiling in the intensive care unit fell as the building swayed. Medical consultation services were temporarily suspended as engineers assessed damage to the building, officials said.
Marcos said that authorities were inspecting roads and buildings, and welfare officials were helping affected residents in northern provinces.
“Most people are asking for tents because they’re afraid to go back to their houses because if these have been weakened and an aftershock hits, they may get hurt,” he told a news conference in Manila.
Earlier, he wrote on Twitter that “everyone is advised to keep out of tall structures.”
More than 400 aftershocks have been detected, but only a few were felt by people, officials said.
In the town of La Paz in Abra, a century-old Christian church was damaged, with parts of its belfry collapsing and some walls cracked, littering the church’s grassy yard with debris, officials said.
At least two towns in Cagayan province lost electricity due to damaged power lines. A number of bridges and roads in outlying provinces were also damaged.
In July, a magnitude 7 earthquake set off landslides and damaged buildings in Abra and other northern provinces, killing at least five people and injuring dozens.
In 1990, a magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines and wrought extensive damage, including in the capital, Manila.
The Philippine archipelago lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
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