MANILA: At least 69 people were killed in a powerful earthquake that hit a central Philippine province where dozens of people were killed by a powerful earthquake Tuesday night.

The magnitude-6.9 earthquake that hit at about 10 pm trapped an unspecified number of residents in collapsed houses, nightclubs and other businesses in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province, officials said.

Rescuers scrambled to find survivors Wednesday. Army troops, police and civilian volunteers backed by backhoes and sniffer dogs were deployed Wednesday to carry out house-to-house searches for survivors.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometres, was about 19 kilometres northeast of Bog

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