Death toll from powerful Philippines earthquake rises

The death toll from a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the southern Philippines has risen to six.

Authorities were still searching for two missing people, local disaster officials said on Saturday.

The offshore quake struck off Mindanao island on Friday afternoon at a depth of 60km, off the provinces of Sarangani and Davao Occidental, according to the German Research Centre for Geosciences.

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Agripino Dacera, disaster office chief of General Santos City in the province of South Cotabato, told Reuters three people had been reported dead there.

A man and his wife died when a concrete wall collapsed on them, while another woman was killed in a shopping mall, Dacera said.

Near the epicentre in Sarangani province, at least two people died, while rescuers are searching for two others missing after there was a landslide, Angel Dugaduga, a disaster response official in the coastal town of Glan, told Reuters.

In Davao Occidental province, a 78-year-old man died after being crushed by a rock, Franz Irag, civil defence officer in the Davao region, told DWPM radio.

Power supply has been restored and most roads are passable, disaster officials said, adding that reports were mostly of minor damage to homes and buildings.

The Philippines lies within the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common.