A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday, triggering tsunami warnings.
A Philippine disaster official said that authorities are verifying reports of at least five deaths in the southern city of General Santos. Agripino Dacera, the disaster management chief in General Santos, said the fatalities are still being verified as authorities assess the extent of the damage on the ground.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said authorities were moving fast to coordinate disaster response.
"The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind," Marcos said in a statement.
Tsunami warnings were also issued in neighbouring Indonesia but later removed.
The Philippines and Indonesia experience hundreds of quakes each year and sit on tectonically complex parts of the "Pacific Ring of Fire", a seismically active belt stretching from South America to the Russian Far East.
