The death toll due to an earthquake that hit the central Philippines has risen to 69. Disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot said that the epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by a local fault, was about 17km north-east of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province.

 

 

According to the Philippines’ Office of Civil Defence, the administration is still verifying the identities of the missing people, and they have been receiving reports that there are people still trapped in the debris. More than 150 people were injured following a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake that struck the coastal city of Cebu in the Philippines’ central Visayas region last night. The tremor was also felt in many neighbouring provinces in the central Philippines, as well as some regions in the southern Philippines.