An earthquake of at least 7.5 magnitude struck the southern Philippine island of Mindanao late Saturday evening, prompting evacuation orders for some areas of the country and southwestern Japan due to warnings of tsunami waves measuring a meter or more high.
The Philippine seismological agency, Phivolcs, said the waves could hit the Philippines by midnight local time (4 p.m. GMT) and continue for hours, although there were no initial reports of serious wave damage by then.
The US Tsunami Warning Center said there could be waves up to three meters high above the usual high tide level along some Philippine coasts, but it later said there was no risk of a tsunami.
She added: “Based on all available data… the risk of a tsunami due to this earthquake has now passed.”
However, Phivolcs stressed that the risk of a tsunami remained on Saturday evening. “The warning has not yet been cancelled,” she said in a statement to reporters.
Phivolcs said people living near the coast of Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental provinces should “evacuate immediately” or “move inland.”
She added: “Boats already at sea during this period must remain offshore in deep water until further notice.”
The two provinces are largely rural and not densely populated, unlike other parts of the Philippines.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK said tsunami waves up to a meter high were expected to reach the southwestern coast of Japan by 1:30 a.m. Sunday (4.30 p.m. GMT on Saturday).
Phivolcs said it did not expect major damage from the earthquake itself, but warned of aftershocks.
The region has already been hit by more than a dozen aftershocks, the largest measuring 6.4, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC).
Raymark Jintalan, the local police chief in the coastal town of Hinatuan near the epicenter of the quake, with a population of about 44,000 people, said that electricity had been cut off since the earthquake, but disaster response teams had not yet detected any victims or damage.
“We are evacuating people away from coastal areas,” he told Reuters.
Pictures published by the local administration in Hinatuan on social media showed dozens of residents and queues of vehicles moving towards higher areas, with a large shelter occupied by dozens of people.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, which is located on the “Ring of Fire,” a belt of volcanoes surrounding the Pacific Ocean that is prone to seismic activity.
The EMSC Center said that the magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred at a depth of 63 kilometers (39 miles), while the US Geographic Survey estimated the magnitude of the earthquake at 7.6 magnitude and at a depth of 32 kilometers (20 miles), and said that it occurred at 10.37 pm.
