MANILA, Oct 10: A fourth moderate earthquake, measuring 5.2, struck along with the sea border between the Philippines and Taiwan, the US Geological Service said late on Tuesday.

The quake’s epicentre was in the Luzon Straight between Taiwan and the Philippines, 197 kilometres west of Basco town in the Batan islands, an isolated region north of the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The quake, which occurred at 1505 GMT, was 26 kilometres deep, the USGS said.

The reading was based on the open-ended moment magnitude scale, often used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

The Hong Kong Observatory also measured the quake at 5.2 on the Richter scale.—AFP