At least 69 people killed in powerful earthquake that hit Philippines

At least 69 people were killed in a powerful earthquake that hit a central Philippine province where dozens of people were killed by a powerful earthquake Tuesday night.

The magnitude-6.9 earthquake that hit at about 10 pm trapped an unspecified number of residents in collapsed houses, nightclubs and other businesses in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province, officials said.

Rescuers scrambled to find survivors on Wednesday.

Army troops, police and civilian volunteers backed by backhoes and sniffer dogs were deployed Wednesday to carry out house-to-house searches for survivors.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometres, was about 19 kilometres northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province, where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

The death toll in Bogo was expected to rise, according to officials, who said intermitted rain and damaged bridges and roads were hampering the race to save lives.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defence deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a news briefing. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”