Philippines earthquake: Six dead as 5.9 magnitude quake hit Batan islands

The earthquake struck off the north of the Philippines on Saturday killing six people and injuring eight, the national disaster agency said. The first quake killed five people and injured eight with one more person killed in the aftershock, according Ricardo Jalad, executive director of the disaster agency. Some buildings partially collapsed in the tourist islands in Itbayat, Batanes.

There are no threats of a tsunami in the area following the powerful tremor.

Images in Philippine media showed collapsed homes, cracked roads and a damaged church.

The Philippines is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from quake-prone Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

The epicentre of the earthquake was located at the depth of 6 miles.

The Philippines has always been prone to deadly earthquakes.

The most fatal of them all came in 1976 when a 7.9 magnitude tremor claimed the lives of 4,791 people.

More recently, a tremor registering 7.2 on the Richter scale led to the deaths of 222 people in October 2013.

In April this year, 11 people died as a 6.1 magnitude earthquake devastated Porac, located roughly 108km (67.1 miles) northeast of Manila.

The Clark International Airport, a former US military base located within Clark Freeport Zone in Angeles and Mabalacat, had suffered severe damage from the earthquake forcing authorities to shut down parts of the building.

The quake comes after the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) urged the public to take part in a preparation drill, as it admits ‘the Big One’ is coming.

PHIVOLCS said in a statement that “any active faults that have not generated historical surface-rupturing events have higher potential to generate a large earthquake also known as ‘The Big One’ which can significantly affect different areas in the Philippines”.

It added: “Hence, everyone should be preparing for it.”