Strong Earthquake Strikes off Philippine West Coast

A strong earthquake struck off the Philippine west coast that shook the capital city of Manila and its outskirts on Thursday afternoon, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.

Photo: Strong Earthquake Strikes off Philippine West Coast

In a bulletin issued by the Phivolcs, the quake measuring magnitude 6.0 on the Richter scale, struck at 27 kilometers southwest of Lubang Island in Mindoro province at 1:29 p.m.

The Phivolcs said the quake's depth was shallow at 25 kilometers and was tectonic in origin, ABS CBN News reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.1 and depth at 21 miles (33 kilometers).

Lubang Island is near the southern end of the Manila Trench, a fault line about 560 miles (900 kilometers) long on the ocean floor under the South China Sea along the western flank of the Philippines' main island of Luzon.

The Philippine archipelago lies in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire where earthquakes are common. It is flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the east and the South China Sea to the west with undersea trenches — potential quake triggers — running alongside its coast on both sides.

The last major quake registered a magnitude 7.7 in 1990 and killed nearly 2,000 people on the main northern island of Luzon, The Associated Press reports.