Philippine earthquake toll rises to 72 as search winds down

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines rose to 72 on Thursday, officials said, as the search for the missing wound down and rescuers turned their focus to the hundreds injured and thousands left homeless.

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A vehicle partially buried under rubble amid destruction caused by the magnitude 6.9 quake in Bogo, Cebu, the Philippines, on Thursday.

(REUTERS)

The bodies of the three latest victims were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel overnight in the city of Bogo, near the epicentre of the 6.9-magnitude quake that struck on Tuesday.

"We have zero missing, so the assumption is all are accounted for," National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council spokesman Junie Castillo said, adding that some rescue units in Cebu province had been told to "demobilise".

President Ferdinand Marcos flew to Bogo with senior aides on Thursday, pledging to put up a "tent city" to temporarily house those whose dwellings were among the 600 wrecked by the quake.

Also to be accommodated there will be the thousands more whose homes remained structurally intact but who fear being caught up in the wave of aftershocks that still sweep the region.