Strong earthquakes jolt southern Philippines, Indonesia, Japan
- A 6.1-magnitude quake struck off Balut island on Saturday, 1,130 kilometres south of Manila; no major damage expected but warnings of an aftershock
- An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck the Talaud Islands in Indonesia, while a magnitude of 6.6 struck off Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, also on Saturday
Two strong earthquakes jolted the southern Philippines on Saturday, but no major damage was expected and there was no threat of a tsunami, government seismologists said.
A 6.1-magnitude quake struck at 10.26am (02.26 GMT) off Balut island, 1,130 kilometres south of Manila, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.
“No destructive tsunami threat exists based on available data,” it added in a bulletin.
The institute said it was also not expecting major damage from the tremor, but warned there would be aftershocks.
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Six hours earlier, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4 shook the coastal town of Baganga in nearby Davao Oriental province, Phivolcs said.
The national disaster agency said that so far, there were also no reported major effects of the Baganga earthquake.
A 7.1-magnitude quake that killed more than 220 people in the central Philippines in October 2013 was the last major quake to hit the country.
In July 1990, more than 2,400 people were killed on the northern island of Luzon in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest ever to hit the country.
An earthquake of magnitude 6 also struck the Talaud Islands in Indonesia on Saturday, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said. The quake was at a depth of 24km (15 miles), GFZ said.
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At least 20 people in Indonesia were killed and dozens injured in September 2019 in a strong earthquake that rocked the Maluku Islands. The month before, five people died and several were injured after a powerful undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia’s heavily populated Java island.
In 2004, a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including around 170,000 in Indonesia.
Both the Philippines and Indonesia are located on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, where about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes take place.
Japan was also hit with an earthquake, this time with a magnitude of 6.6, which struck off the coast of the southern island of Kyushu early Saturday, damaging roads and buildings.
Minor injuries were reported in five prefectures near the earthquake’s epicentre. Some roads in southern Oita and Miyazaki were closed after being damaged by falling rocks, collapsed trees and ruptured water pipes. The areas experienced shaking of 5+ on Japan’s intensity scale during the quake.
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The quake struck at 1.08am off Japan’s southern coast at a depth of 45 kilometres (28 miles), but there were no signs that it would trigger a tsunami, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The quake’s magnitude was revised up from a preliminary measurement of 6.4.
Some areas near the epicentre of the quake lost power overnight, but the nearby Sendai and Genkai nuclear power stations are operating normally, according to Kyushu Electric Power. Train operator JR Kyushu suspended some lines in the Oita and Miyazaki areas Saturday.
