Major Philippines Earthquake

[PeterRS]

Although i used to visit Manila quite regularly when I first arrived in Asia, I was never there for one of the regular typhoons. Given that regularity I often feel sad for the Filipinos who have to endure such misery and damage in their wake.

Now it's an earthquake which has devastated some of Cebu. Not only was it a big one at 6.9 on the Richter scale, it was relatively shallow meaning the destruction is worse, the more so since it struck after dark. The US Geological Service has recorded four aftershocks of more than 5. The shaking of the indoor sports hall near the end of the video is really scary.

[TMax]

I remember a time in Baguio the hotel I was staying in shaking a lot around 4:30-5:00am, somewhere nearby in the region had a quake that registered around 5 on the Richter scale and I can say it wasn't the best experience as my mind went back to the reports I had read and seen on the 1990 earthquake up there. I have been through many cyclones which includes a typhoon that passed over the town I was in when in the Philippines once and can luckily say I have always come through them all unscathed. My heart does go out to those in the Philippines that have their lives turned upside down by the earthquakes and typhoons.

[PeterRS]

 I have been in several category 10 typhoons in Hong Kong and quite a few minor earthquakes in Tokyo and Taipei. The largest quake I ever experienced was the 6.9 quake near Santa Cruz just around 5:00 pm in 1989 that saw the collapse of part of the Bay Bridge. I was in the little town of Pacific Grove, the roads were all cracked and the power out till morning. But everything in that town other than the Hyatt where I was staying was very low rise and I do not recall much structural damage. Further north in San Francisco and the Bay area there was considerably more damage. I hate to think what that magnitude must have done in Cebu.

[TMax]

Magnitude 7.4 earthquake rocks Davao Oriental, nearby provinces on Oct. 10

A powerful earthquake measuring magnitude 7.4 on the Richter scale struck Davao Oriental at 9:43 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 10, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

It was initially reported as magnitude 7.6 before Phivolcs revised it to 7.5 then 7.4

Phivolcs said the quake’s epicenter was located 43 kilometers northeast of Manay, Davao Oriental, at a shallow depth of 23 kilometers.

Davao Oriental earthquake

[PeterRS]

Magnitude 7.4 is a huge earthquake and, as worse, it triggered a second 6.9 quake later that day. I wonder if double quakes might be a thing of the future? I recall when Nepal was devastated by its late April 7.8-7.9 quake ten years ago destroying much of the historic centre of the cities in the Kathmandhu valley and so many villages in the hills. Just as the aftershocks were subsiding, a second quake magnitude 7.3 hit in mid-May. The total effect on such a poor country was disastrous.

Sichuan Province in China also had two quakes in 2002 - 5.9 in June and 6.6 in September. Earlier Sichuan had also experienced the country's largest quake - 7.9 in May 2008.

Hopefully the Philippines might have been better prepared, as much as anyone can for an earthquake.