Philippine quake wreaks havoc

Toll rises to 69 as scores of injured patients overwhelm hospitals | Children cry and adults scream while being treated on beds beneath tents outside hospital

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Motorists pass a crack on a major highway in Tabogon, Cebu province, on Wednesday after a 6.9-magnitude quake struck off the coast in central Philippines.

(AFP)

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines rose to at least 69 on Wednesday, a disaster official said, with scores of injured patients overwhelming hospitals on the island of Cebu.

Injured children cried and adults screamed while being treated on beds beneath blue tents outside the Cebu Provincial Hospital, having been wheeled outside as a precaution against waves of aftershocks overnight.

They are survivors of the shallow magnitude 6.9 quake that struck late on Tuesday off Cebu island’s north near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey.

Others were not so fortunate, and AFP journalists saw hospital workers loading black body bags into vans that took the dead to local mortuaries.