At least five people are dead in the southern Philippines after it was struck by a powerful earthquake Thursday, the third one to hit the region this month.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the 6.5 magnitude quake struck about 1 kilometer south of the town of Kisante on Mindanao island. The death toll included a local official killed when a village hall collapsed.
At least eight residents of a five-story condominium in Davao city, the hometown of President Rodrigo Duterte, had to be rescued when the building collapsed.
Duterte was in Davao at the time of the quake, but his spokesman says the president is safe.
The region was struggling to recover from a 6.6 magnitude quake that killed at least eight people Tuesday, and a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck on October 16 that left at least five people dead. Hundreds of people were injured and scores of buildings were destroyed or damaged in the two quakes.
The Philippine archipelago sits along the so-called “Ring of Fire,” a series of underground fault lines and volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean Basin, where most of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.
