Today A Powerful Earthquake Hits the Philippines

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Multiple schools, shops, offices and commercial buildings sustain damage.

​Destruction in General Santos, a city on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, after a magnitude 7.8 quake occurred under the sea 15 kilometers away. © Reuters

MANILA -- At least 19 people died and 12 are missing after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern coast of the Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday morning, disaster management officials reported. A further 134 have been injured and many schools, shops, offices and commercial buildings collapsed or sustained damage after the tremor at 7:37 a.m., the Office of Civil Defense said in a statement at 3:20 p.m. local time. Ten of the confirmed deaths were in General Santos, the city 15 kilometers from the epicenter, and five in Sarangani, the closest province in Mindanao to the epicenter. The other deaths were reported elsewhere across the island. Rod Sosmena, director of the Office of Civil Defense region that covers Mindanao, told Nikkei Asia that the casualty figures might well rise as reports are verified.

The quake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers at 7:37 a.m., the German Research Center for Geosciences said. Geophysics agencies in the Philippines and neighboring Indonesia issued tsunami warnings, and waves up to 1.4 meters higher than normal were reported in several areas. A number of aftershocks greater than magnitude-6 were reported. The warnings were lifted at 3:20 p.m. local time and the international airport in General Santos, which is 1,050 kilometers south of the capital Manila, had resumed operations by mid-afternoon.

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Social media posts showed widespread damage to a variety of buildings, roads and bridges, particularly in General Santos, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the suspension of classes in all schools in affected areas across Mindanao on what was the first day of the country's new school year.

"The national government is moving, and we will not leave Mindanao behind," the president said in a statement about what is one of the country's less well developed areas. "I am in constant communication with our regional offices and local chief executives on the ground." Neighboring Indonesia also issued a tsunami warning.

One woman who lives just outside Manado, the nearest big Indonesian city to the epicenter, said she felt the quake but added: "We're all good and safe." As part of the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a seismically active belt stretching from South America to the Russian Far East, the Philippines and Indonesia experience hundreds of earthquakes every year.