At least 37 people have died after a powerful earthquake struck the southern Philippines, as rescuers continued searching a collapsed commercial building for survivors in General Santos on Tuesday.
Regional fire officer Edgar Tanawan, who is leading the operation, told Reuters that two people had been pulled alive from the commercial building, which housed a grocery store and other businesses, while a third person was found dead.
Scanners have so far detected no signs of life from the remaining two missing people, he added.
"It's difficult to accept, as a mother, that my son is still trapped there," said Dioslinda Deluvio, distraught as she waited outside the building for news of her son. "I don't know… it's very hard to accept."
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck early on Monday about 20 km off the coast of Sarangani province, triggering tsunami warnings across several countries. Tremors were strongly felt across Mindanao and as far away as Manado on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, about 420 km away.
Officials said they hoped the death toll would not rise further as search and rescue operations continued, with more than 400 people injured and four still missing.
Devastation was seen in parts of General Santos, home to more than 700,000 people and now under a state of calamity, with collapsed buildings and debris scattered across streets under fallen power and utility lines.
The Philippines experiences hundreds of earthquakes each year and sits on a tectonically complex section of the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a seismically active belt stretching from South America to the Russian Far East.
Schools, which had just reopened on Monday after a long break, remained closed as authorities assessed the condition of school buildings, thousands of which sustained damage ranging from minor to severe, Rafaelito Alejandro, head of the Office of Civil Defense, told DZBB radio.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) recorded 23 strong aftershocks, with the most powerful measuring magnitude 6.7. The aftershocks forced some residents to spend the night in evacuation centres and temporary shelters.
In General Santos and Sarangani, patients were treated in makeshift tents while officials worked to ensure hospitals were safe, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa told DZBB. He added that restoring electricity was critical, as power outages were limiting access to sensitive and specialised treatments required by patients.
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