Oct 26, Kathmandu: A strong quake jolted the northern Philippines late on Tuesday (October 25) damaging an old Church in the province of Abra. A 6.7-magnitude earthquake shook the country's north at 10:59 p.m., hitting the province of Abra, exactly just three months after a magnitude 7 earthquake also hit the province.

Aftershocks rocked the northern Philippines early Wednesday after a strong earthquake injured at least six people and caused substantial damage to a hospital and several old churches, authorities said.

State volcanologists said there was no tsunami threat.

One of the first IFI churches built in the country and one of the most stunning in the country is the Nuestra Senora de La Paz in Poblacion, La Paz, Abra. Prior to the IFI's founding and the 1902 separation from the Catholic Church, the damaged church was originally built in the 1880s.

Aftershocks

The Tuesday night quake struck the mountain town of Dolores in Abra province, followed by numerous aftershocks over the rest of the night, the state seismology office said.

"We hid under a table and my family only went out of the house after the shaking stopped," Abra rescuer Ron Sequerra told AFP by telephone, adding his family had been woken by strong ground shaking.

Six people were injured in the Abra town of Cagayan.

Sealed off

The Lagayan mayor's office and a high school building were sealed off after they sustained cracks and broken glass windows, according to pictures posted on the town's official Facebook page.

In the city of Batac in the neighboring province of Ilocos Norte, several patients spent most of the night outside a government hospital after the ceiling collapsed on several rooms and damaged equipment, hospital staff said.

Boulders rolling down a hillside temporarily blocked a road linking Batac to the nearby town of Banna, but rescue officials said the landslide had since been cleared.

A number of old churches in Abra and Ilocos Norte also sustained damage, the civil defense office said.

School holiday

Ilocos Norte governor Matthew Marcos Manotoc declared a school holiday and government workers were told not to report for work as the authorities inspected the integrity of buildings.

In July, a 7.0-magnitude quake also in mountainous Abra province triggered landslides and ground fissures, killing 11 people and injuring several hundred others, according to the official count.

Earlier earthquakes in Northern Luzon killed hundreds of people and destroyed numerous buildings, including tourist attractions and historical sites like old cathedrals.

Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.