Quake jolts southern Philippines, 23 injured

A magnitude-5.9 earthquake jolted the southern Philippines on Friday, injuring 23 people, mostly from a stampede in a shopping mall, dpa quoted officials as saying. The tremor struck at 3:58 pm (0758 GMT) and its epicentre was located west of Dinagat Island off the southern province of Surigao, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. It was felt most strongly in Surigao City, where panic broke out among a crowd of several hundred people attending the opening of the second floor of a shopping mall. "The people all rushed to one exit and there was a stampede," provincial Governor Sol Matugas said. "Twenty people have been rushed to hospital for various injuries." Witnesses said glass panels of the mall's entrance broke as people ran outside. "Some of the people were already running barefoot as they came out of the mall," Salvador Cortez told a Manila radio station. Two teachers and a student were also injured in a school gymnasium when a cable snapped during the quake, Matugas added. On March 6, a magnitude-5.2 quake rocked central and eastern provinces, injuring 10 people. On February 6, a magnitude-6.9 quake struck the central province of Negros Oriental, killing 51 people. The Philippines, located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, suffered its worst earthquake in 1990 when a magnitude-7.7 tremor killed nearly 2,000 people on the northern island of Luzon.