November 8, 2011
MANILA (AFP) - A moderate quake that struck a southern Philippine city has left at least 10 people injured and damaged about two dozen houses and shops, rescuers said Tuesday.
The 5.0-magnitude quake shook the small city of Valencia on Mindanao island Monday, and damaged 23 houses, a hardware shop and a grocery store in the community of about 150,000 people, the local civil defence office said.
The casualties were hit by falling objects and structures when the quake struck at 5:43 pm (0943 GMT), but no one was seriously hurt, a civil defence official told AFP.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 5.0-magnitude while the Phliippines seismologists put it at 5.2.
Winchell Sevilla, seismologist at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in Manila, said the quake was caused by a movement of a local fault about a kilometre (0.62 miles) below the earth's surface.
"It was very shallow, so even though it was only 5.2, the energy it generated can cause a lot of damage," he told AFP.
Sevilla said the quake was felt in other areas of the major southern island of Mindanao, though there were no immediate reports of further damage.
The Philippines sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" -- a belt around the Pacific Ocean dotted by active volcanoes and tectonic trenches, where frequent eruptions and earthquakes take place.
