Updated September 01, 2012 00:25:43
An earthquake of 7.6 magnitude has struck off the Philippines, destroying roads and bridges and sending people fleeing to higher ground in fear of a tsunami.
The quake was centred off the east coast, 146 kilometres off the town of Guiuan in Samar province at a depth of about 32 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.
A tsunami warning was issued for much of the region, including Japan and several Pacific islands, but was later scaled it back to just the Philippines and Indonesia.
There is no tsunami threat to Australia.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology says tsunami waves up to one-metre high could hit coastal areas.
The head of the institute, Renato Solidum, says people living along the eastern Philippines coast have been ordered to evacuate.
"It is a shallow quake and could trigger a tsunami so we have raised an alert," he said on local radio.
"Waves could reach one metre high and as a precaution those living in coastal areas facing the sea should now evacuate and go to higher areas."
The predicted landfall timings for the first of any tsunami waves, which would have hit Indonesia and the Philippines, passed without immediate reports of damage.
There were no immediate reports of casualties after the quake, which the USGS had originally reported the earthquake as magnitude-7.9.
A radio reporter in Leyte province, near Samar, said people ran out of their homes when the quake struck.
"It felt like we were being rocked," he told Reuters.
The tsunami warning was initially issued for the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea and other islands in the Pacific including the US state of Hawaii.
The region has been hit by devastating quakes in the past decade.
At least 230,000 people in 13 Indian Ocean countries were killed in a quake and tsunami off Indonesia in 2004.
Last year, an earthquake and tsunami off Japan's north-eastern coast killed about 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years after waves battered a nuclear power station.
ABC/wires
Topics: earthquake, disasters-and-accidents, philippines, asia
First posted August 31, 2012 23:11:01
An earthquake of 7.6 magnitude has struck off the Philippines, destroying roads and bridges and sending people fleeing to higher ground in fear of a tsunami.
The quake was centred off the east coast, 146 kilometres off the town of Guiuan in Samar province at a depth of about 32 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.
A tsunami warning was issued for much of the region, including Japan and several Pacific islands, but was later scaled it back to just the Philippines and Indonesia.
There is no tsunami threat to Australia.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology says tsunami waves up to one-metre high could hit coastal areas.
The head of the institute, Renato Solidum, says people living along the eastern Philippines coast have been ordered to evacuate.
"It is a shallow quake and could trigger a tsunami so we have raised an alert," he said on local radio.
"Waves could reach one metre high and as a precaution those living in coastal areas facing the sea should now evacuate and go to higher areas."
The predicted landfall timings for the first of any tsunami waves, which would have hit Indonesia and the Philippines, passed without immediate reports of damage.
There were no immediate reports of casualties after the quake, which the USGS had originally reported the earthquake as magnitude-7.9.
A radio reporter in Leyte province, near Samar, said people ran out of their homes when the quake struck.
"It felt like we were being rocked," he told Reuters.
The tsunami warning was initially issued for the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea and other islands in the Pacific including the US state of Hawaii.
The region has been hit by devastating quakes in the past decade.
At least 230,000 people in 13 Indian Ocean countries were killed in a quake and tsunami off Indonesia in 2004.
Last year, an earthquake and tsunami off Japan's north-eastern coast killed about 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years after waves battered a nuclear power station.
ABC/wires
Topics: earthquake, disasters-and-accidents, philippines, asia
First posted August 31, 2012 23:11:01