In the south of the Philippines, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the island of Mindanao this Saturday, announced the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS), with authorities calling on the population to move away from coastal regions in the face of risk. of “destructive tsunami”. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 32 km at 10:37 p.m. (1437 GMT) at a distance of about 21 km northeast of Hinatuan, the USGS said. An aftershock of magnitude 6.4 was subsequently announced.
No casualties or damage were immediately reported, but according to police officer Joseph Lamba in Hinatuan, the earthquake was “very strong”. Dyl Constantino, 25, was on the island of Siargo, northeast of Mindanao, when the earthquake struck. “It was the longest and strongest earthquake I have ever experienced, it probably lasted almost four minutes,” he assured AFP.
“A destructive tsunami is expected with waves whose height poses a threat to lives,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology added on X. It advised residents in the provinces of Surigao Sur and Davao Oriental to “evacuate immediately” further inland or to higher altitudes. In Davao City, the coast is closely monitored. “The tide is still high and we don’t notice anything unusual,” said Anna Quinones, a natural disaster official who monitors tsunami risk.
A recent earthquake
Earthquakes occur daily in the Philippines, as the archipelago is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a zone of intense seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan to the Pacific Basin through Asia from the South-East. Most are too faint to be felt by humans.
A 6.7 magnitude earthquake already struck the Mindanao island region on November 17, killing at least nine people.