The president of the Philippines has ordered evacuations in coastal areas near the epicentre of a magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck in the Mindanao region, sparking multiple tsunami warnings.
The earthquake struck about 20 kilometres away from the town of Manay at 9:43am local time (11:43am AEST) on Friday, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, which initially logged it as a magnitude-7.6.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) both listed the tremor as a magnitude-7.4. The ESMC said it hit at a depth of 58 kilometres below ground-level, the EMSC said on Friday.
Evacuations have been carried out at a school in Davao City after the earthquake. (AP: Manman Dejeto)
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said authorities were urgently assessing the situation on the ground.
Search and rescue efforts were also being organised for deployment as soon as it was safe to do so, Mr Marcos said in a statement.
“We are working round the clock to ensure that help reaches everyone who needs it,” he said.
Earlier, the Philippine seismology chief Teresito Bacolcol said his agency would issue a tsunami warning.
Waves of more than 1 metre above normal tidal levels were forecast on the country’s Pacific coast over a two-hour period.
Mr Bacolcol’s office also urged residents in coastal areas in the affected zone “to immediately evacuate to higher grounds or move farther inland”.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
Edwin Jubahib, the governor of the southern Philippine province of Davao Oriental, said people panicked when the earthquake struck.
“Some buildings were reported to have been damaged,” he told broadcaster DZMM.
“It was very strong.”
School children were rushed outside in Davao City after the tremor. (AP: Manman Dejeto)
Immediately after the quake, the United States Tsunami Warning System issued a tsunami threat from Hawaii, saying hazardous waves were possible for coasts within 300km of the quake’s epicentre.
In the half-hour after the quake, the USGA recorded multiple aftershocks in similar locations, including tremors of magnitudes ranging between 5.6 and 6.0.
At least 69 people dead in Philippines quake
In Indonesia, a tsunami warning was issued by the country’s geophysics agency for the northern Sulawesi and Papua regions.
The agency’s modelling suggested there was a risk of tsunami waves as high as 50 centimetres hitting Indonesia’s shorelines, it said in a statement.
Panic as buildings shake
Christine Sierte, a teacher in the town of Compostela near Manay, told AFP she was in the middle of an online meeting when the violent shaking from the earthquake started.
“It was very slow at first then it got stronger … that’s the longest time of my life. We weren’t able to walk out of the building immediately because the shaking was so strong,” she said.
“The ceilings of some offices fell, but luckily no one was injured.”
Local teachers near to the city of Manay reported that some panicked students hyperventilated after the earthquake struck. (AFP: Supplied/Golden Cornucopia, Davao de Oro State College)
She said that some of the school’s hundreds of students “suffered panic attacks and difficulty in breathing”.
Kath Cortez, a local journalist based in Davao city to the west of Manay, told AFP the ground floor walls of her family’s house were showing small cracks.
“I was surprised by the strength. I had just woken up and was about to take a shower,” she said, adding that members of her family ran out of the house.
Second strong quake, days after dozens killed
The quake on Friday struck less than a fortnight after 69 people were killed in the aftermath of another magnitude-6.9 tremor that collapsed buildings.
That incident in the country’s central Cebu province injured many others and sent residents scrambling outdoors in search of safety.
At least 12 residents died when they were hit by falling ceilings and walls of their houses, some while sleeping, in Medellin near Bogo, Gemma Villamor, who heads the town’s disaster-mitigation office, said at the time.
In San Remigio town, also near Bogo, five people, consisting of three coastguard personnel, a firefighter, and a child, were killed separately by collapsing walls while trying to flee to safety from a basketball game, the town’s vice-mayor, Alfie Reynes, told the DZMM radio network.
The Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences more than 800 quakes each year.