(MENAFN- Live Mint) A moderately strong earthquake struck near a northern Philippine mountain city on Thursday, sending people fleeing from buildings and forcing schools to shut down, AFP reported, citing officials.

The quake, which occurred at 10:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), hit the city of 366,000 people, causing employees to rush out of office buildings. This tremor came just 10 days after a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines that killed more than 70 people, residents told AFP by phone.

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"We're going to check for damage," building administrator Ralph Cabuag told AFP as more than 300 employees and patients filed out of the three-storey Baguio city health office.

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The government seismology office earlier put the magnitude at 4.8 and said it was "expecting damage", but subsequently lowered the figure to 4.4.

Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong shut down the city's elementary and high schools, the city public information office said on its Facebook page.

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The state seismology office said the epicentre was located in the town of Pugo, near Baguio.

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake in July 1990 claimed the lives of around 1,600 people in and around Baguio, a city atop a mountain range that is also one of the Philippines' top tourist destinations.

Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which lies along the Pacific“Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

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We're going to check for damage Mayor Benjamin Magalong shut down the city's elementary and high schools.

On Thursday, the government updated the death toll from the recent Cebu earthquake to 74, with two additional fatalities reported in the towns of Medellin and Tabogon on Cebu Island. The quake destroyed or damaged approximately 72,000 homes and left 1,058 others injured, according to disaster officials.

(With inputs from AFP)

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