MANILA (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck the central Philippine island of Negros yesterday, triggering landslides that toppled houses and killing at least 12 people, including two children, officials said.
Government offices and schools were closed after at least 240 aftershocks jolted the area. The army put the death toll higher, but the state disaster agency could not confirm the figures.
A grade-six pupil died after being plucked out from a collapsed chapel wall while a nine-year-old girl was killed when the concrete wall of a school crumbled, officials said.
Most of the deaths were due to the landslide in La Libertad, in Negros Oriental province, near the quake’s epicentre — 5 km (three miles) off Tayasan town, in a strait separating the islands of Negros and Cebu. The tremor was recorded at a depth of 10 km, according to local calculations.
A three-storey building caved in, seaside cottages were wiped out, and about 20 houses sustained damaged following a sudden rise in water levels along the shoreline, the disaster agency said.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.7 and at a depth of 12.4 miles.
