An offshore magnitude 7.9 earthquake rocked the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 32 people, injuring more than 200 others mostly in damaged buildings and sending a one-metre tsunami into nearby coasts.

A few buildings collapsed and key infrastructure sustained quake damage in the city of General Santos, and tsunami damage was reported in at least one coastal village.

Smaller waves were measured in Indonesia and Palau and as far away as southern Japan.

The quake also triggered a landslide in Sarangani province in the southern Philippines that killed 13 villagers.

Rene Punzalan, a disaster-mitigation official for the province, told the DZBB radio network that the landslide hit houses in the mountainous town of Glan.

Four other villagers died in Sarangani for still-unclear unclear reasons, he said.

“It’s a major earthquake," Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said, warning people to seek advise before returning to damaged buildings and houses which could collapse due to aftershocks.

“Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire,” said Rod Sosmeña, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, told The Associated Press from the hard-hit port city of General Santos, where he was traveling when the quake struck at 7.37am.

“The shaking was very strong and people dashed out of houses into the streets," Sosmeña said.

Earlier, the China Earthquake Networks Centre (CENC) said the 7.9-magnitude tremor struck at 7.37am at a depth of 40 kilometres, while the United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the quake at magnitude 7.8, hitting at a depth of 35 kilometres off the island of Mindanao.

Benjie Ancheta, police chief of Alabel town in Sarangani in the Philippines, said the police building had some cracks immediately after the quake, which occurred during their flag-raising ceremony.

"This is the strongest earthquake we've experienced," Ancheta told Reuters by phone.

Witnesses in Indonesia's northern city of Manado said the quake felt very strong.

Phivolcs, the Philippine agency, said the quake was magnitude 7.0.

Indonesia's BMKG put the quake at a 7.7 magnitude.

Japanese authorities also issued a tsunami advisory along swathes of its Pacific coast.

The Philippines and Indonesia are tectonically complex parts of the "Pacific Ring of Fire", a seismically active belt stretching from South America to the Russian Far East. (Agencies)

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Last updated: 2026-06-08 HKT 18:25


Edited by Tony Sabine