Tsunami Alert Lifted Following Major Earthquake in Philippines

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The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled its tsunami alert for the Philippines, Palau, and Indonesia on Friday, following a 7.4 magnitude earthquake that hit near the southern Philippines.

“The tsunami threat has now been removed,” the US agency mentioned in a statement.

The earthquake occurred approximately 20 kilometers away from Manay in the Mindanao area at 9:43 am local time (11:43 am AEDT), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Threatened regions in the Philippines were initially warned to brace for waves up to three meters, with Palau and Indonesia facing potential waves as high as one meter, according to earlier advisories from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Children evacuated a school after a strong earthquake in Davao City in the Philippines on Friday. Source: AP / Manman Dejeto

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the quake, though police officer Dianne Lacorda said the province of Davao Oriental, which includes Manay, expected damage.

“Our cups and glasses on the table were shaking and falling,” she noted, mentioning that power and communication lines were disrupted, preventing authorities from assessing potential damage in several regions.

‘Shaking was so strong’

Christine Sierte, a teacher in the town of Compostela near Manay, said she was in the middle of an online meeting when the violent shaking started.

“It was very slow at first, then it got stronger … that’s the longest time of my life. We weren’t able to walk out of the building immediately because the shaking was so strong,” she said.

“The ceilings of some offices fell, but luckily no one was injured.”

Sierte said some of the school’s nearly 1,000 students “suffered panic attacks and difficulty in breathing”.

Around the same time as the earthquake in the Philippines, USGS also identified a shallow 6.2-magnitude tremor located more than 140 km southeast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

A 99km-deep quake also struck near the Pacific island nation’s second-largest city of Lae on Tuesday. No major damage was reported.

Earthquakes 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 Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

This is a developing story and this article will be updated.