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MANILA: A 7.4-magnitude earthquake Friday morning off the southern Philippines killed at least five people, set off landslides, damaged hospitals and schools and prompted evacuations of coastal areas nearby because of a tsunami warning, which was later lifted.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., facing his latest natural disaster after a recent deadly quake and back-to-back storms, said the potential damage was being assessed and rescue teams and relief operations were being prepared and would be deployed when it was safe to do so.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said that it was expecting damage and aftershocks from the temblor, which was centered at sea about 43 kilometers (27 miles) east of Manay town in Davao Oriental province and was caused by movement in the Philippine Trench at a depth of 23 kilometers (14 miles).
At least five people were killed, including two patients who died of heart attacks at a hospital during the earthquake and a resident who was hit by debris in Mati city in Davao Oriental, Ednar Dayanghirang, regional director of the government’s Office of Civil Defense, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Two villagers died and several others were rescued with injuries by army troops and civilian volunteers in a landslide set off by the quake in a remote gold-mining village in Pantukan town in Davao de Oro province near Davao Oriental, Dayanghirang said.
Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said that several buildings sustained cracks in their walls, including an international airport in Davao city, but it remained operational without any flights being canceled, Alejandro said.
“I was driving my car when it suddenly swayed and I saw power lines swaying wildly. People darted out of houses and buildings as the ground shook and electricity came off,” Jun Saavedra, a disaster mitigation officer of Governor Generoso town in Davao Oriental, told The Associated Press by cellphone.
“We’ve had earthquakes in the past, but this was the strongest,” Saavedra said, adding that the intense ground swaying caused cracks in several buildings, including a high school, where about 50 students were brought to a hospital by ambulance after sustaining bruises, fainting or becoming dizzy because of the quake.
Governor Generoso is a town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Manay, where school classes in all levels were also suspended.
Children evacuated schools in Davao city, which has about 5.4 million people and is the biggest city near the epicenter, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Davao Oriental province.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu said that small waves were detected on the coasts of the Philippines and Indonesia before the threat passed about two hours after the quake. It said that small sea fluctuations may continue.
A tsunami warning that set off evacuations in six coastal provinces near Davao Oriental was later lifted without any major waves being detected, chief government seismologist Teresito Bacolcol said.
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said that small tsunami waves were detected in North Sulawesi province with heights ranging from 3.5 to 17 centimeters (1.3 to 6.7 inches) in Melonguane, Beo, Essang and Ganalo in Talaud Islands districts.
The Philippines is still recovering from a Sept. 30 earthquake with a 6.9 magnitude that left at least 74 people dead and displaced thousands of people in the central province of Cebu, particularly in Bogo city and outlying towns.
The archipelago also is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year, making disaster response a major task of the government and volunteer groups.
Also Friday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck Friday off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The US Geological Survey said that it was centered in the Bismarck Sea 414 kilometers (257 miles) northeast of Lae, the South Pacific island nation’s second-most populous city.
Lae police official Mary Jane Huafilong said that no damage was reported.

DAKAR: Burkina Faso says it has refused a proposal from the Trump administration to accept deportees from the United States.
The West African country was asked whether it would accept non-citizens expelled by the US, in addition to its own nationals, Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said Thursday on national television.
“Naturally, this proposal, which we deemed indecent at the time, is totally contrary to the value of dignity which is part of the very essence of the vision of Capt. Ibrahim Traoré,” he said, referring to the country’s military ruler.
The remark came only a few hours after the US Embassy in the capital Ouagadougou suspended most visa services for Burkina Faso residents, redirecting applications to its embassy in neighboring Togo. The embassy did not give a reason for the move.
Citing a US diplomatic note accusing Burkinabe nationals of not complying with visa usage rules, Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré called the move a possible “pressure tactic” and said, “Burkina Faso is a land of dignity, not deportation.”
The US Embassy in Ouagadougou and Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
More than 40 deportees have been sent to Africa since July after the Trump administration struck largely secretive agreements with at least five African nations to take migrants under a new third-country deportation program. Rights groups and others have protested the program.
The US has sent deportees to the small African nation of Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana. It also has an agreement with Uganda, though no deportations there have been announced.
Six deportees are still detained in an unspecified facility in South Sudan, while Rwanda hasn’t said where it is holding seven deportees. Eleven of the 14 deportees sent to Ghana last month sued the government there for holding them in what they described as terrible conditions at a military camp on the outskirts of the capital, Accra.
Human Rights Watch said last month the Trump administration offered financial incentives to some African countries to accept deportees. The rights group said it reviewed written agreements showing Eswatini will receive $5.1 million in US funding for migration and border management while Rwanda will receive $7.5 million.