Khaberni - The Philippine authorities announced today, Wednesday, that the violent earthquake, which hit on Tuesday evening in the center of the archipelago with a magnitude of 6.9, resulted in up to 60 deaths.
The Deputy Head of the Civil Defense Office, Rafaelito Alejandro, told reporters in Manila, "We are receiving an increasing number of reports of victims, so the situation is very volatile. We have received reports that up to 60 people were killed in this earthquake."
The disaster management official, Rex Ygot, explained that the earthquake's center, which resulted from a local fault, was about 17 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Bogo in Cebu Province, which has a population of about 90,000, where dozens were killed.
He added that the death toll in Bogo is likely to increase, noting that rescue teams are trying to transport a bulldozer to accelerate search and rescue operations in a mountainous residential area affected by a landslide and massive rock fall.
The National Disaster Management Agency reported that more than 140 people were also injured due to the earthquake that hit Cebu Province and the surrounding provinces on Tuesday evening.
Also confirmed by the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology: "This is considered a very strong earthquake. We expect damage and aftershocks."
Videos on social media showed buildings collapsing, including two churches in Cebu Province, and crowds fleeing in panic in a public market in Cebu City. Dozens of patients were also evacuated from a Cebu hospital.
The central provinces of the Philippines are still recovering from the storm that struck them on Friday, which resulted in the deaths of at least 27 people, most of them due to drowning and falling trees, and caused power outages in entire cities and towns and forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.
