A powerful earthquake hit the focal Philippines on Tuesday, a day after a 6.1 quake rattled the country’s north and killed somewhere around 11 people.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude of Tuesday’s quake at 6.3, while the neighborhood seismology organization said it was a 6.2. The tremor was focused close Eastern Samar province and prompted residents to dash out of houses and office laborers to hasten to safety.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from the new quake.
Rescuers worked overnight to recoup bodies in the rubble of a general store that slammed down in Monday’s tremor, which damaged different buildings and an air terminal in the northern Philippines.
The bodies of four victims people were pulled from Chuzon Supermarket and three other villagers died due to collapsed house walls, said Mayor Condralito Dela Cruz of Porac town in Pampanga province, north of Manila.
An Associated Press photographer saw seven people, including at least one dead, being pulled out by rescuers from the pile of concrete, twisted metal and wood overnight. Red Cross volunteers, troops, police, and villagers used four cranes, crowbars and sniffer dogs to look for the missing, some of whom were still yelling for help Monday night.
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Authorities inserted a vast orange cylinder into the rubble to blow in oxygen in the desire for helping people breathe. On Tuesday morning, rescuers pulled out a man alive, sparking cheers and applause.
“We’re all very happy, many clapped their hands in relief because we’re still finding survivors after several hours,” Porac Councilor Maynard Lapid said by phone from the scene, adding that another victim was expected to be pulled out alive soon.
Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda said at least 10 people died in her province. The magnitude-6.1 quake damaged houses, roads, bridges, churches and an international airport terminal at Clark Freeport, a former American air base, in Pampanga. A state of calamity was declared in Porac to allow contingency funds to be released faster.
In Manila, thousands of office workers dashed out of buildings in a panic, some wearing hard caps, and residents ran out of houses as the ground shook. Many described the ground movement like sea waves.
A traffic-inclined Manila road was partially closed after a school building was damaged by the quake and seemed to tilt marginally sideways toward an adjacent building, officials said. Numerous schools and government workplaces, including courts, in the thickly pressed Manila city, were closed Tuesday to permit examinations of their structures.
One of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, the Philippines has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it lies on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a seismically active arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. A magnitude-7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.
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