Strong quake shakes southern Philippines, no damage reported

A powerful earthquake shook the southern Philippines on Tuesday morning, but no damage or casualties were immediately reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday morning on Mindanao island in the south. Philippine seismologists said it was a lower magnitude of 6.4.

It was near the town of Kisante and less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Davao City. It was about 50 kilometers (30 miles) deep.

A 6.3 earthquake earlier this month in the same region killed five people and caused damage to several schools and other buildings. In July, two earthquakes hours apart struck a group of sparsely populated islands in the Luzon Strait in the northern Philippines, killing eight people.

Seismic activity is common in the Philippines, which lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the ring of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.