At Least 4 Dead While Dozens Injured as Magnitude 7 Earthquake Hits the Philippines

In the northern Philippines on Wednesday, a severe earthquake caused landslides, destroyed houses, and injured dozens of people. Hospital patients in the capital were evacuated, while panicked people fled inside.

A Strong Quake

According to Renato Solidum, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, the mid-morning shaking was a strong earthquake with a 7-magnitude epicenter in the hilly region of Abra province.

"The lights went out instantly, and the ground rocked like I was on a swing. Michael Brillantes, a safety officer of the nearby Lagangilang, Abra town, claimed, "We hurried out of the office, and I heard screaming, and some of my friends were in tears.

Brillantes told The Associated Press over the phone, "I believed the ground would open up because it was the most violent quake I've ever felt.

Casualties and Damages

In Abra, a villager was killed by collapsing cement slabs in his home, and at least 25 other people were also hurt. At least four more individuals also perished, primarily in fallen houses. In the strawberry-growing mountain village of La Trinidad in the province of Benguet, a worker was trapped to death when a tiny structure that was under construction collapsed.

Abra, where President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office less than a month ago, intended to come on Thursday to meet victims and local authorities, has many houses and structures with broken walls, including several that fell.

At a press conference, Marcos Jr. said that the chandeliers in his office at the riverfront Malacanang presidential palace complex started swinging and making noises. He described the ground shaking as being "extremely powerful."

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Terrifying Incident

In a terrifying near-death incident, Filipino photojournalist Harley Palangchao and friends were driving in two vans downhill in Peak Province when they heard thunder-like thuds and looked ahead to see an avalanche of rocks the size of automobiles falling from a steep mountain.

While his friends in their vehicle yelled for him to "back up, back up! In the front seat, the 44-year-old father of three hoisted his camera and took what he felt may be his last photographs. One person was hurt when a boulder touched the vehicle in front of them, but he and the others in the second van moved backward quickly enough to avoid harm.

Palangchao told the AP, "I thought there should at least be a record if something occurred to us. It was an awful experience,

Abra's three-story structure was shown in a Red Cross photo sagging perilously toward a road littered with rubble. In a witness's panicked video capture, parts of a historic stone church tower were seen flaking off and collapsing in a cloud of dust on a hilltop.

At least two hospitals in Manila, roughly 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of Lagangilang, had patients and medical staff evacuated, some of whom were in wheelchairs. However, after engineers discovered just a few small holes in the walls, they were instructed to return.

Investigating the Quake

After more investigation, the earthquake's magnitude was reduced from its initial 7.3 magnitudes. The institute stated the quake was caused by movement in a small local fault at a depth of 17 kilometers (10 miles), and it added that it anticipated damage and several aftershocks.

Philippine's History with Earthquakes

The Pacific "Ring of Fire," a ring of faults around the Pacific Ocean where the majority of earthquakes in the world take place, runs along the coast of the Philippines. In addition, it experiences roughly 20 typhoons and tropical storms a year, making it one of the nation's most vulnerable to natural disasters.

Nearly 2,000 people were killed in the northern Philippines in 1990 by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.

Related Article: Earthquake Simulation Shows How Major Quakes Starts at Grains in Fault Boundaries 

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