Tremor rocks Cotabato City

RESIDENTS of Upper Kolambog, Barangay Lapasan, in Cagayan de Oro City help clear the debris from a house that was destroyed by a landslide following Friday’s earthquake. The landslide killed a woman and injured her 4-year old grandson. JB R. DEVEZA / INQUIRER MINDANAO

COTABATO CITY—A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rocked this city and its environs Monday afternoon, but officials said no casualty was reported.

Renier Amilbajar, a seismologist of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) station for Cotabato, said the tremor, which was tectonic in origin, occurred at 2:49 p.m. and was traced to the Cotabato Trench, an active generator of earthquake.

The epicenter was located 59 kilometers southwest of here.

The city and Maguindanao felt the tremor at intensity 4, and Palembang town in Sultan Kudarat at intensity 3.

Amilbajar said the quake had nothing to do with Friday’s 7.6-magnitude tremor that rocked eastern Philippines. “This is separate from the earthquake that hit Eastern Samar, the origin was tectonic and due to the movement of earth’s plate,” he said.

“This is normal movement of tectonic plate,” Amilbajar said, adding that aftershocks were likely to follow. Edwin O. Fernandez and Charlie C. Señase, Inquirer Mindanao