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At Least 8 Dead, 60 Hurt as Quakes Shake Northern Philippine Isles

Associated Press

   Updated at 11:23 p.m. July 26, 2019

   MANILA, PHILIPPINES -- Three strong earthquakes hours apart struck a
   group of sparsely populated islands in the Luzon Strait in the northern
   Philippines early Saturday, killing at least eight people, injuring
   about 60 and causing substantial damage.

   The quakes collapsed houses built of stone and wood, arousing residents
   from sleep, said Roldan Esdicul, who heads the Batanes provincial
   disaster-response office.

   "Our bed and everything were swaying from side to side like a hammock,"
   Esdicul told The Associated Press by cellphone from Basco town, the
   provincial capital. "We all ran out to safety."

   More than 1,000 residents of hard-hit Itbayat island -- nearly half of
   the island's population of mostly fishermen -- were advised not to
   return to their homes and stay in the town plaza as successive
   aftershocks shook the region, he said.

   "The wounded are still being brought in," Itbayat Mayor Raul de Sagon
   told a local radio station. He said more doctors may be needed if the
   number of injured from interior villages rises.

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