CEBU: At least five people were killed when a 6.9-magnitude quake shook the central Philippines late on Tuesday, local police said.

“We have five confirmed deaths,” police officer Felipe Cabague of the municipality of San Remigio said early Wednesday, adding he had no immediate details about the identity of the victims.

The quake struck off the north of Cebu island at 9:59pm, damaging buildings and roads and causing widespread power cuts.

Municipal workers checked a collapsed public building and a gym, both in the north of the island of Cebu, hours after the quake struck at sea off its northern tip at 9:59 pm, provincial rescue official Wilson Ramos said.

“There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,” he said, citing rescue efforts underway in the town of San Remigio and Bogo, a city near the epicentre with 90,000 residents. He said he did not know how many people are missing.

Recovery efforts were being hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, he added. The US Geological Service has recorded four quakes of magnitude 5.0 or higher in the area following the first tremor.

The local seismology office warned of a possible “minor sea-level disturbance” and urged residents of the central islands of Leyte, Cebu and Biliran to “stay away from the beach and not to go to the coast”.

Cebu firefighter Joey Leeguid said from San Fernando town: “We felt the shake here in our station, it was so strong. We saw our locker moving from left to right, we felt slightly dizzy for a while but we are all fine now.”

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2025