By Ma. Cristina Arayata/Philippine News Agency
A series of small and shallow earthquakes recorded in Camarines Sur from October 14 to 18 may cause non-structural damage, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said on Monday.
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred at around 10:08 p.m. on October 14, some 3 kilometers northwest of the municipality of Canaman.
It had a depth of 4 kilometers.
Since then until 1:22 a.m. Monday, the Phivolcs monitoring station in San Jose town has recorded 27 small earthquakes ranging from 1.7 to 4.3 magnitude and with crustal shallow depths between 1 and 40 kilometers.
There has been no similar event since 6 a.m. until posting time.
“The highest reported intensity in the series of earthquakes was Intensity V, where possible non-structural damage such as broken glass doors can happen,” Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum Jr. told the Philippine News Agency.
According to Phivolcs, 10 of the tremors were felt at various intensities in Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur and Albay.
“The magnitude and shallow-depth of this inland event has a potential to cause damage in the general vicinity of the epicenter. The Office of Civil Defense was immediately informed about this during the information release of the first event,” the agency said in a statement.
Social media posts indicated the event was widely felt with unconfirmed observations of non-structural damage and damage to building contents, the statement read.
The sequence of tremors “showing no identifiable large event can be considered as an earthquake swarm that may occur in a tectonically active region, as suggested by sparse seismicity in this area of the Bicol Region,” Phivolcs said.
Sparse seismicity refers to the thinly scattered distribution of earthquakes, according to Solidum.
Phivolcs said a similar short-duration burst of earthquake activity occurred on Dec. 13, 1993 but did not culminate in a major event. -rir
