CEBU, Philippines, 1 Oct — At least 69 people were killed when a magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck Cebu province in the central Philippines late Tuesday, trapping residents in collapsed homes, businesses, and nightclubs, officials said.
The quake hit around 10 p.m., with its epicenter located approximately 19 kilometers northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people. Officials reported that roughly half of the deaths occurred in Bogo. The tremor, triggered by movement along an undersea fault at a shallow depth of just five kilometers, also devastated outlying rural towns in the province.
Army personnel, police, and civilian volunteers, aided by backhoes and sniffer dogs, conducted house-to-house searches for survivors Wednesday. Efforts were slowed by intermittent rain and damaged roads and bridges, officials said.
“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” said Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defence. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”
Authorities warned that the death toll in Bogo was expected to rise as rescue operations continued.
