7.0 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Northern Philippines

MANILA — A strong earthquake struck the northern Philippines on Wednesday morning, killing at least one person, shaking buildings and causing some structures to collapse, officials said.

The 7.0 magnitude quake struck at 8:43 a.m. at a depth of 10 kilometers, or six miles, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. The epicenter was in the northwestern part of Luzon, the country’s most populous island.

“This is a major quake,” Renato U. Solidum, the head of the institute, said in an interview with a local radio station. He added that it had been felt with “relatively moderate intensity” hundreds of miles away in the capital, Manila.

One man, a construction worker, was killed by falling debris, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.

There were no other immediate reports of casualties, and the disaster risk agency said no damage had been reported at hydropower dams in the affected area. In Manila, light rail train service was briefly suspended at some stations.

But officials released photos from Abra Province, where the quake struck, that showed damage to buildings, some of which had partially collapsed.

Other official photos from Baguio City, in nearby Benguet Province, showed patients sheltering on the grounds of a hospital after being evacuated. One sat in a wheelchair, attended by medical personnel.

Joy Bernos, the vice governor of Abra Province, said in a radio broadcast on Wednesday morning that people there were still experiencing aftershocks approximately every 15 minutes. Initial reports indicated that some bridges had collapsed, she added.

“After everything stabilizes we will start to check around the area,” she said.

Trixia Angeles, the press secretary for the Philippines’ new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., said Mr. Marcos would travel to the quake-hit area as soon as it was safe to do so.

The seismology institute initially reported that the quake had a magnitude of 7.3, but later downgraded its estimate. There was no risk of a tsunami from the quake because the fault was inland, the institute said.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, lies along the so-called Ring of Fire, a region where tectonic plates sometimes grind together to cause deadly earthquakes.

Two earthquakes in the central Philippines each killed nearly 100 people in 2012 and 2013. Two years ago, an earthquake west of Manila left at least 11 people dead.

The tectonic plate under the Philippine Sea has produced seven earthquakes of at least 8.0 magnitude and 250 others larger than 7.0, according to the United States Geological Survey.

This is a developing story.

Jason Gutierrez reported from Manila, and Mike Ives from Seoul. Camille Elemia contributed reporting from Manila.