6.0-Magnitude Earthquake Jolts Philippines

<h4>6&period;0-Magnitude Earthquake Jolts Philippines<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p><strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that after a devastating earthquake hit Turkey on February 6&comma; killing at least 45&comma;000 people and rendering millions homeless across almost a dozen cities with estimated at &dollar;34 billion or roughly 4 percent loss in the country’s annual economic output&comma; a 6&period;0-magnitude earthquake jolted the southern Philippines on Tuesday&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;This was made known by the US Geological Survey&period; Local authorities have warned of aftershocks and possible damage&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;According to information&comma; the shallow quake struck at about 2&colon;00 pm &lpar;0600 GMT&rpar;&comma; a few kilometres from Maragusan municipality in the mountainous gold-mining province of Davao de Oro on Mindanao island&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more harm than deeper ones&comma; but there were no immediate confirmed reports of major damage&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;An employee in the Maragusan disaster office told AFP that authorities were checking reports of a landslide on a national highway&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have not received any reports of other damage or casualties&comma; but we are checking the villages around the town&comma;” he added&comma; declining to give his name&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Things shook at the office but there was no damage&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;The <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;channelstv&period;com&sol;">quake lasted about 30 seconds and was followed by aftershocks&comma; said Corporal Stephanie Clemen&comma;<&sol;a> with police in the city of Tagum&comma; about 40 kilometres &lpar;25 miles&rpar; from Maragusan&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We immediately went under our desks and when the ground stopped shaking we went straight outside&comma;” Clemen told AFP&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are still outside because a moderate aftershock just hit&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;While the quake did not appear to have destroyed anything&comma; Clemen said&comma; it was strong enough to &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;cause fear”&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Phoebe Alberto and her colleagues at the disaster office in New Bataan municipality&comma; adjacent to Maragusan&comma; fled their building as it shook&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are still assessing damage to our building&comma; if any&comma;” said Alberto&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are here outside now&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines&comma; which sits along the Pacific &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ring of Fire”&comma; an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Most are too weak to be felt by humans&comma; but strong and destructive ones come at random with no technology available to predict when and where they will happen&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The nation’s civil defence office regularly holds drills simulating earthquake scenarios along active fault lines&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The last major quake was in October in the northern Philippines&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The 6&period;4-magnitude earthquake hit the mountain town of Dolores in Abra province&comma; injuring several people&comma; damaging buildings and cutting power to most of the region&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;A 7&period;0-magnitude quake in mountainous Abra last July triggered landslides and ground fissures&comma; killing 11 people and injuring several hundred&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Source&colon; AFP<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;