BOGO - Rescuers searched collapsed buildings for survivors on Wednesday after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake jolted the central Philippines, killing at least 31 people on the island of Cebu, with fears the toll could rise.
The shallow quake struck at 9:59pm Tuesday off the island's northern end near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro said the Cebu provincial hospital in Bogo recorded 25 deaths from the city alone.
"Because of the high volume of patients with serious injuries, the medical staff tended to some of them outside the hospital," Baricuatro posted on her official Facebook page.
Rescuers earlier tallied six more deaths elsewhere in the province, while the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council listed 147 injured across the central islands, where 22 buildings were damaged.
The Cebu provincial government has put out a call on its official Facebook page for medical volunteers to assist in the aftermath of the quake.
"There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings," provincial rescue official Wilson Ramos told AFP.
Overnight recovery efforts were hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, he added.
The rescue effort proceeded all night even as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the region was being rocked by 379 aftershocks.
The quake caused power lines to trip, leading to outages across Cebu and nearby central islands, though power was restored shortly after midnight in Cebu and four other major central islands, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said in an updated advisory.
The Cebu provincial government reported a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a fast food restaurant in Bogo was heavily damaged.