Strong 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes off southern Philippines, tsunami warning issued

MANILA: An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck offshore in the southern Philippines on Friday, the country’s seismology agency said, with a tsunami warning issued and people in nearby coastal areas urged to evacuate to higher ground.

The Phivolcs agency warned of damage and aftershocks after the strong offshore quake, which struck in waters off Manay town in Davao Oriental in the Mindanao region. It said the quake happened at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

The agency warned people living in coastal towns in the central and southern Philippines to immediately evacuate to higher ground or move further inland.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

Phivolcs said wave heights of up to more than one metre above normal tides could be expected in the next two hours.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre put the magnitude at 7.4 and at a depth of 58 km (36 miles).

The U.S. Tsunami Warning System also issued a tsunami threat, saying hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 km (186 miles) of the earthquake’s epicenter.

WASHINGTON: The United States will deploy 200 troops as part of a joint task force for Gaza stability, with no Americans on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, two senior US officials said on Thursday.

The officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the 200 would be the core of a task force that would include representatives from Egypt’s military, Qatar, Turkey and probably the United Arab Emirates.

The officials said the US troops’ exact location had yet to be decided. But they would develop a joint control centre and integrate other security forces that will work in Gaza to coordinate with Israeli forces to avoid clashes.

“No US troops are intended to go into Gaza,” said one of the officials.

Responding to a social media post, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that up to 200 existing CENTCOM personnel will monitor a Gaza ceasefire alongside international forces.

The clarification from the White House spokesperson addresses the first phase of a US-brokered Israel-Hamas deal announced by President Trump on October 8, 2025, which includes hostage releases and partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as approved by Israel’s cabinet earlier today. 

The officials said it is hoped the Gaza deal, once set into motion, will cool tensions in the region and create conditions for negotiations on more normalisation deals between Israel and Arab nations.

US President Donald Trump, in his first term, brokered what are known as the Abraham Accords — normalisation deals between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.

The officials said Saudi Arabia is a candidate for such an agreement with Israel, as are Indonesia, Mauritania, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday admitted for the first time his country played a role in the 2024 crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane, describing it as a “tragedy”.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight crash landed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 of the 67 people on board, after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the southern Russian city of Grozny.

In a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Putin said Russia had deployed two missiles to destroy Ukrainian drones on the morning of the incident, and that they exploded “a few meters away” from the aircraft.

“The two missiles that were fired did not directly hit the aircraft. If that had happened, it would have crashed on the spot,” Putin said.

Russian air traffic controllers advised the pilot attempt a landing in the Russian city of Makhachkala, but he instead attempted to land at his home airport and then in Kazakhstan, where the plane came down, Putin said.

“Russia will do everything necessary in such tragic cases to provide compensation, and the actions of all officials will be legally assessed,” he said.

Aliyev previously accused Russia of attempting to conceal the true cause of the crash.

On Thursday, he thanked Putin for providing “detailed information about the tragedy”, the Kremlin said in a readout.

Initial statements by Russia’s air transport agency suggested that the plane, an Embraer 190, was forced to divert after a bird strike.

Russia’s handling of the incident dramatically soured relations with Azerbaijan, an oil-rich post-Soviet state with historically close links to Moscow.