Tsunami warnings issued after powerful earthquake off Philippines

BREAKING, Officials in Indonesia, Philippines and Japan warn of possible tsunami waves after quake off Mindanao.A powerful earthquake has struck the Philippines, destroying buildings and triggering tsunami alerts across Asia.The magnitude 7.8 quake struck off the island of Mindanao shortly before 7:40am local time (23:40 GMT Sunday), according to the United States Geological Survey.Video posted on official social media channels showed a three-storey building that housed a Jollibees restaurant collapsing in a cloud of debris and dust in Mindanao’s General Santos City, startling onlookers.Other images showed extensive damage to buildings, including smashed windows and caved-in roofs.Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday morning that emergency agencies had been activated, including the Office of Civil Defence and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.Marcos urged people to follow government advisories about the risk of hazardous tsunami waves.“To our kababayans [countrymen] in the affected provinces, please heed the tsunami warning. Move to higher ground now. Do not wait. Your life is more important than anything left behind,” Marcos said.Marcos said schools across several provinces of Mindanao had also been closed for the day.The US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said earlier that tsunami waves as high as 3 metres (9.8 feet) could hit coastal areas of the Philippines, and waves of up to 1 metre (3.3ft) were possible in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.The US National Tsunami Warning Center, which downgraded the quake from an earlier estimate of magnitude 8.2, said the quake posed no threat to coastal areas of the US.