At least 7 killed in two quakes off southern Philippines

Two powerful offshore earthquakes struck the same region in the southern Philippines hours apart on Friday with the first, a magnitude 74 temblor, killing at least seven people, setting off landslides and prompting evacuations of coastal areas nearby because of a brief tsunami scare.

- By Jim GoMEZ

FIREFIGHTERS and residents work together on an awning. The earthquakes were on the same fault line.

(Bureau of Fire Protection)

The second one had a preliminary magnitude 6.8 and also sparked a local tsunami warning by authorities. It was caused by movement in the same fault line, the Philippine Trench, at a depth of 23 miles off Manay town in Davao Oriental province, Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology chief Teresito Bacolcol said.

“The second one is a separate earthquake, which we call a doublet quake,” Bacolcol told the Associated Press. “Both happened in the same area but have different strengths and epicenters.”

Bacolcol and other authorities expressed fears that the second nighttime earthquake could further weaken or collapse structures already undermined by the first one.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., facing his latest natural disaster after a recent deadly quake and back-to-back storms, said the potential damage was being assessed and rescue teams and relief operations were being prepared and would be deployed when it was safe to do so.

The first quake was centered at sea about 27 miles east of Manay town and was caused by movement in the Philippine Trench at a depth of 14 miles, government seismologists said.