Philippines earthquake: dozens dead as rescuers search through wreckage

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Philippines earthquake: dozens dead as rescuers search through wreckage

9:41 CAT | 01 Oct 2025

FILE - The earthquake was one of the most powerful to batter the central region in more than a decade and it struck while many people slept or were at home. [File photo: AP]

Rescuers search for casualties in coastal city of Bogo, where power was knocked out and buildings and roads damaged

The death toll from a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck central Philippines has risen to 60, a civil defence official said on Wednesday.

“We are receiving additional numbers of reported casualties so this thing is very fluid. We are receiving reports [that] as high as 60 individuals are reported to have perished in this earthquake,” Rafaelito Alejandro, deputy administrator of the government’s civil defence office told reporters in Manila.

The shallow quake struck off Bogo, a city of 90,000 near the northern tip of the populous island of Cebu late Tuesday, collapsing buildings and tearing up roads.

“There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,” he said, adding that rescue efforts were under way in the town of San Remigio and in Bogo. He said he did not know how many people were missing.

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also hit by about 20 typhoons and storms each year.

On Tuesday night, recovery efforts were hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, Ramos said. The US Geological Service has recorded four quakes of magnitude 5.0 or higher in the area since the first tremor.

Martham Pacilan, 25, who lives in the resort town of Bantayan, also near the quake centre, said he was at the town square near a church, which had been damaged.

“I heard a loud booming noise from the direction of the church then I saw rocks falling from the structure. Luckily no one got hurt,” he said. “I was in shock and in panic at the same time but my body couldn’t move, I was just there waiting for the shake to stop.”

The Cebu provincial government reported a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a number of village roads had sustained damage.

In Bogo, the quake damaged the concrete walls of houses, a fire station and roads, firefighter Rey Cañete said. “We were in our barracks to retire for the day when the ground started to shake and we rushed out but stumbled to the ground because of the intense shaking,” Cañete told the AP, adding that he and three other firefighters sustained cuts and bruises.

The quake caused power lines to trip, leading to outages across Cebu and nearby central islands, the Philippines National Grid said, adding it was assessing the extent of the damage.

The Cebu provincial governor, Pamela Baricuatro, urged residents in a live video message on her official Facebook account to “stay calm and move to open areas; keep away from walls or structures that may collapse and stay alert for aftershocks”.

She said the provincial government was assessing the situation and contacting municipal officials.

The US Geological Service had reported a magnitude reading of 7.0, before revising it down, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami threat.

Source: The Guardian