Strong quake shakes Philippine island

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DALUPIRI ISLAND, PHILIPPINES: A strong earthquake struck the Philippine island of Dalupiri on late Thursday morning, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, Channel 6 news reports.

The 6.0-magnitude earthquake at 10.56 am local time was centred less than a kilometre from the western coast of Dalupiri Island, which is part of the Babuyan Islands in the Luzon Strait north of Luzon island in the Philippines.

It struck about 113 km deep, making it an earthquake of intermediate depth, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS).

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the area, which is mostly uninhabited. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the earthquake at only 5.4 on the Richter scale but at a much shallower depth of just 20 km.

The Philippines is on the so-called ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin which is prone to frequent and large earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions also occur frequently in the region.