Philippines
Collapse of a mall’s ceiling is among the damage reported after a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck the Mindanao region
Agence France Press in Manila
Sat Nov 18, 2023 04:00 GMT
The death toll from a powerful earthquake off the southern Philippines rose to five on Saturday as authorities in two provinces reported more casualties.
The magnitude 6.7 quake that struck the Mindanao region on Friday afternoon caused part of the ceiling of a mall to collapse, triggered power outages and sent people onto the streets.
Falling debris from the mall in General Santos City crushed a woman to death while 19 other people were treated for shock, city police Capt. Ari Noel Cardos said.
Police earlier reported the death of a couple trapped under a collapsing concrete wall in General Santos, where about 30 students were also being treated for breathing difficulties.
Another person was killed by a falling steel structure in the municipality of Glan in Sarangani province, police officer Paul Mesalido said.
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Glan police were dispatched on Saturday to check a reported landslide in a nearby village, Mesalido added.
In neighboring Davao Occidental province, an elderly man was killed by a large rock that rolled down a hill near his home, police officer Patrick Laurente said.
The state seismological service said the quake was likely caused by movement of the Earth’s crust along the Cotabato Trench, a long, narrow depression on the seafloor that forms the boundary between one tectonic plate pushing against another.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines because it lies along an arc of seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia to the Pacific Basin.
Most are too weak to be felt, but strong and destructive ones can appear randomly.
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