A powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake jolted the central Philippines on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people.
The earthquake struck at 9.59pm local time off Cebu island's northern end, near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey.
Civil defence deputy administrator Raffy Alejandro said the death toll remains "fluid" as more reports come in from emergency responders.
Cebu governor Pamela Baricuatro said the Cebu provincial hospital in Bogo recorded 25 deaths from the city alone.
“Because of the high volume of patients with serious injuries, the medical staff tended to some of them outside the hospital,” Mrs Baricuatro posted on her Facebook page.
Rescuers earlier tallied six more deaths elsewhere in the province, while the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council listed 147 injured across the central islands, where 22 buildings were damaged.
Dramatic footage filmed by residents and shared widely on social media showed an old Catholic church on Bantayan island near Cebu adorned with a string of light bulbs swaying wildly shortly before its belfry tumbled into the courtyard.
“I heard a loud booming noise from the direction of the church, then I saw rocks falling from the structure. Luckily no one got hurt,” said Martham Pacilan, who was nearby when the belfry collapsed.
Local television showed riders being forced to dismount from their motorcycles and hold on to railings as a bridge in Cebu rocked violently.
Buildings were damaged as far as Cebu city, 100km south of Bogo, where online shoe merchant Jayford Maranga, 21, hid under a restaurant table to avoid being struck by the collapsing metal ceiling of a shopping mall.
“My friend and I ate at the food court near closing time and then, bang! It was as if the Earth stopped spinning. And then the mall started shaking,” Mr Maranga said. His friend was slightly injured, he added.
The Cebu provincial government has put out a call on its Facebook page for medical volunteers to assist in the aftermath. “There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,” rescue official Wilson Ramos said.
Overnight recovery efforts were hampered by aftershocks, he added. The rescue mission proceeded all night as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the region was rocked by 379 aftershocks.
The quake caused electricity lines to trip, leading to power cuts across Cebu and nearby central islands, though power was restored shortly after midnight in Cebu and four other major islands, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said.
The Cebu government reported that a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a fast-food restaurant in Bogo was heavily damaged.
Agnes Merza, 65, a carer in Bantayan, said her kitchen tiles had cracked. “It felt as though we would all fall down. It's the first time I have experienced it. The neighbours all ran out of their homes. My two teenage assistants hid under a table because that's what they were taught in the Boy Scouts,” she told AFP.
A number of village roads also sustained damage.
Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through South-east Asia and across the Pacific basin.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
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Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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- Ackee and salt fish: the national dish of Jamaica makes for a hearty breakfast
- Jamaican porridge: another breakfast favourite, can be made with peanut, cornmeal, banana and plantain
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The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
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Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
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Name: Kumulus Water
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
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It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
