Magnitude 5.7 Earthquake Strikes Mindanao; Philippine Agency Expects No Significant Damage
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Mindanao in the southern Philippines on Thursday, October 8. Reuters reported that the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) put the quake at a depth of 10 kilometres, while the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in an advisory that it was not expecting significant damage but that aftershocks were likely. Qatar News Agency coverage likewise confirmed no reports of casualties or material damage.
Monitoring sites summarising U.S. Geological Survey data located the epicentre in the Sulawesi Sea about 57 kilometres south of General Santos, at a depth of about 52 kilometres, with maximum intensity V and some 2.8 million people exposed to shaking; the USGS issued a green alert, indicating a low likelihood of casualties or damage. The differing magnitude and depth readings across agencies — 5.5 to 5.7 — reflect normal variation between monitoring networks.
The Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is highly seismically active. Two quakes of magnitude 5.0 or above were recorded nationwide in the October 3–9 week alone: a 5.0 in Tawi-Tawi on October 6 and a 5.6 in Davao Occidental on October 8. The same week, from October 4 to 9, the Philippine Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Force ran the Doshin-Bayanihan 6-26 disaster-relief exercises across the Visayas and Palawan, covering relief airdrops, mass-casualty handling and aeromedical evacuation.
Phivolcs said in its advisory that aftershocks remained possible in the coming days. Philippine earthquake information is issued through Phivolcs' official bulletins, and the small differences between agencies' magnitude and depth readings for this quake are as set out above.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：滚筒式地震仪记录的地震波形（资料图）。摄影：Ilyacadiz，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
