People came out of buildings in the city of Cebu, due to the earthquake that took place in the Philippines on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. Credit: Alan Tangcawan / AFP / Profimedia
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 degrees hit the coasts in the central area of the Philippines on Tuesday night, destroying buildings and roads and interrupting the electric current in some parts of the region, without being reported yet, AFP reports.
The Local Seismology Bureau warned of a possible “minor level disturbance” and urged the inhabitants of the Leyte, Cebu and Biliran inhabitants to “stay away from the beach and not go on the coast.”
The epicent of the earthquake was located at sea, off the northern peak of Cebu and near Bogo, a city with over 90,000 inhabitants, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, who said they are waiting for both damages and replicas.
“In a state of shock and panic”
Joey Leeguid, a fireman in Cebu, told AFP in the city of San Fernando: “We felt the earthquake here, in our station, it was so strong. We saw the closet moving from left to right, we felt slightly dizzy for a while, but now we are all good.”
Martham Pacilan, a 25 -year -old resident of Bantayan tourist city, near the epicenter, said he was in the city market, near a church, which was damaged by the earthquake.
“I heard a loud noise in the direction of the church, then I saw stones falling from the structure. Fortunately, no one was hurt,” he told AFP.
“I was in shock and panic at the same time, but my body could not move, I was just waiting to stop the shake,” the man said.
Agnes Merza, a caretaker from Bantayan, said the tiles in her kitchen cracked.
“I felt that we will all fall. It is the first time I live this. The neighbors all fled their homes. My two teen assistants hid under a table because this was learned in scouts,” said the 65-year-old woman for AFP.
Damaged buildings and current feathers
The government of the province of Cebu reported that a commercial building and a school in Bantayan collapsed, while a series of roads in the village were damaged. However, as the earthquake occurred in the evening, there were probably no people at that time.
The earthquake caused current interruptions in CEBU and nearby islands, said the national operator of the electrical grid, who said that he is still evaluating the extent of the damages.
In a live on his official Facebook account, the governor of the province of Cebu, Pamela Baricuatro, urged the inhabitants “to remain calm and move to open areas; to avoid walls or structures that could collapse and to remain attentive to the replicas.”
She said that the province's government is evaluating the situation.
The warning center for Tsunami in the Pacific area said that there is no threat of tsunami following the earthquake.
Earthquakes occur almost daily in the Philippines, which are in an area with intense seismic activity.
Most of them are too weak to be felt by people, but the powerful and destructive ones appear unexpected, without available a technology to predict when and where they could hit.
