Powerful quake rocks the Philippines

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed at least five people in the northern Philippines yesterday, toppling buildings and shaking high-rise towers more than 300 kilometers away in the capital Manila.

The earthquake struck the mountainous and lightly populated province of Abra on the main island of Luzon at 8.43am, the US Geological Survey said.

It left more than a hundred injured across the region, triggered dozens of landslides and knocked out power.

In Bangued, the provincial capital of Abra, a 23-year-old woman was killed after a wall fell on her, police said.

Two construction workers in the nearby province of Benguet died in separate incidents. Another person was killed when he fell off a building site in the mountains of Kalinga province.

In Vigan City, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the province of Ilocos Sur, centuries-old Spanish colonial structures were damaged, police said.

The quake, one of the strongest to hit the Philippines in years, was followed by nearly 300 aftershocks. Several of the subsequent quakes measured from magnitude 4.7 to 5.2.