A 6.5-magnitude earthquake killed at least two people in the central Philippines on Thursday, with more than five people still trapped inside a collapsed commercial building, officials said. An 18-year-old woman died after being hit by falling debris in Ormoc City on Leyte island, near the epicentre of the quake, police said. Elsewhere, rescuers pulled out eight survivors and one body from a collapsed three-storey structure in the town of Kananga, also on Leyte island, Kananga Vice Mayor Elmer Codilla told AFP.
"Eight have been rescued. All are in the hospital," he said, declining to say if their injuries were serious. Among those rescued were two people who previously sent SMS messages under the rubble, calling for help, he said. "There are six or seven still inside. Definitely more than five but less than ten," he added. Among those still trapped are two children who have been reached by rescuers but who still cannot be extricated from the rubble, the vice-mayor said.
"We have given them water," he added. Dominico Petilla, the governor of Leyte province, said rescue personnel, ambulances and heavy equipment have been sent to the mountainous town of about 50,000 people. "They're still trying to pull out the injured," Petilla told local television. The 10-year-old building housed a small hotel upstairs and shops on the ground floor, officials said. The quake hit at a depth of around six kilometres (four miles), the US Geological Survey said.
There was no warning of a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Large parts of Leyte were devastated by super typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. Huge tsunami-like waves smashed the city of Tacloban and nearby areas, leaving 7,350 people dead or missing. Tacloban and Ormoc, the island's other main city, largely escaped damage this time, residents contacted by telephone told AFP. However the entire island of Leyte as well as neighbouring islands were still without power after the quake caused geothermal plants on the island to shut down, an energy department statement said.
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