Strong earthquake shakes south Philippines

By Roy Ramos

ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines

A strong magnitude 6.3 earthquake shook some southern Philippines provinces early Saturday, but no casualties or damage were reported.

The director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) told local radio station dzBB no damage was expected since the epicenter of the tremor struck at sea 32 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Davao Oriental province.

"The earthquake originated deep offshore that's why we did not issue tsunami warning," Renato Solidum underlined.

The MindaNews portal reported that the trembling from the quake caused parents in a poor village in Davao City to embrace their scared children, while a catholic Jesuit-run university called off classes and other activities "pending evaluation of its facilities”.

According to Phivolcs, aftershocks were felt an hour later in Mati, the capital of Davao Oriental.

The Philippines archipelago is located along the Pacific Ocean’s "Ring of Fire", where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

The most recent high-casualty earthquake to hit the country had a magnitude of 7.2 and left 222 people dead and 976 injured in October 2013 in the central Visayas islands, where it destroyed 73,000 structures.

In 1976, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake off the southern Zamboanga Peninsula left up to 8,000 people dead or missing.