Manila, June 08: An offshore magnitude 7.8 earthquake rocked the southern Philippines early Monday, damaging buildings and a key access bridge in a large southern city and setting off a 1-metre (3-foot) tsunami that washed ashore on nearby coasts. At least four people were killed and more than 200 others injured, officials said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged people to go to higher ground in Philippine areas vulnerable to a tsunami, and Indonesian and Malaysian authorities also issued warnings to their nearby coastal areas.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said the threat of a tsunami had largely passed about five hours after the 7:37 am quake. But it still urged people to stay alert and to heed warnings from local authorities as sea levels may fluctuate for a few more hours.

The strongest quake to strike the Philippines this year was centred at sea about 13 kilometres southwest of General Santos, a city of more than 700,000 people that is a hub for tuna processing and other commerce in the southern Mindanao region of the archipelago nation.

The Philippine leader said disaster-response agencies were on standby to respond. “The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” Marcos said.

Damage and at least 4 deaths in Philippines

At least three people were killed and 130 others were injured in General Santos, where at least a few small buildings partially collapsed and several structures, including a key access bridge, sustained dangerous cracks, Rod Sosmeña, regional director of the Office of Civil Defence, told The Associated Press.

The Department of Health said another person died in Davao Oriental province due to the quake.

There were no immediate reports of people being trapped in partially collapsed structures in General Santos due to the quake, said Sosmeña, who was being driven to work when the ground violently shook.

“Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire,” Sosmeña the AP by telephone from General Santos. “People dashed out of houses into the streets.”

The international airport in General Santos was temporarily shut due to the earthquake and 17 domestic flights were cancelled, civil aviation officials said.

Ednar Dayanghirang, director of the Office of Civil Defence in a nearby southern region, said more than 100 students attending morning flag-raising ceremonies sustained bruises and some fainted in panic at different grade and high schools.

“I myself could hardly stand and keep my balance when the ground shook as I was leaving my house,” Dayanghirang told the AP by telephone from southern Davao, a major port city in the southern Philippines.

DZRH radio station in Manila reported that a small commercial building housing its provincial branch partly collapsed and staffers dashed to the ground floor without injuries. It wasn’t clear if other people were trapped in the rubble of the four-storey office building. Debris also fell from other buildings, hitting tricycle taxis parked below.

The quake was caused by movement in the Cotabato Trench at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

“It’s a major earthquake and we’re expecting damages and we’ve already seen some damaged buildings based on videos we’ve seen,” institute director Teresito Bacolcol told AP.

Tsunami waves near 3 feet measured

Waves of 1-metre (3-feet) were monitored in the Philippine provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani by land-based tsunami watch stations, Bacolcol said. Smaller waves were monitored in at least one other province, he said.

“Please heed the tsunami warning. Move to higher ground now. Do not wait. Your life is more important than anything left behind,” Marcos told people in quake-hit provinces.

Malaysia’s Meteorological Department issued a tsunami warning for Sabah state on Borneo island. Sabah is just a boat ride away from southern Philippines. An 83-centimetre (2.7-feet) tsunami was measured by a gauge off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.

The PTWC said smaller sea changes were possible in Papua New Guinea and in places in the western Pacific. There was no threat for Hawaii.

Aftershocks up to 6.5 magnitude were measured by the US Geological Survey. It reported the depth of the original quake at 55 kilometres. Variations in measurements by different agencies are common in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake.

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year.

Dubai, June 08: Israel launched airstrikes early Monday targeting central and western Iran in response to missile fire from Tehran, attacks that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a regional war.

Iranian state television reported the sound of explosions being heard in Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran, without immediately elaborating.

A witness in Tehran described hearing at least one large blast somewhere to the west of the country’s capital city. Iran closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main airfield, after the Israeli attack.

Sirens sounded across Israel Monday after its military said a missile launched from Yemen targeted the country, without elaborating. Israel’s rescue services said there were no reports of casualties or impacts from the launch from Yemen.

Yemen is home to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The Houthis have fired missiles at Israel during the Israel-Hamas war and later, but haven’t been fully involved in the Iran war. The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack, though it can take them hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.

In Iran, officials offered no details on what had been struck, nor any damage information. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said that Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attack Monday morning, without elaborating.

The Israeli military at dawn in Iran issued a short statement as the strikes started: “A short while ago, the Israeli Air Force struck military targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran.” It did not elaborate.

In Saudi Arabia, missile alert sirens sounded Monday morning in an area home to an air base that hosts US forces. Saudi state media reported the alert around its Al Kharj governorate, home to Prince Sultan Air Base. The alert came after Israel’s strikes on Iran. Saudi Arabia shortly after said the missile danger in the area had passed, without elaborating.

The White House did not respond to messages about the strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the US.

Jerusalem, Jun 08: Iran launched missiles at Israel in the first such escalation since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, raising the possibility of a return to heavy fighting and complicating mediation efforts to end the war.

Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the launches, and Iran closed its western airspace to brace for a possible response. Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning earlier Sunday in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down. Israel said the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at northern Israel earlier in the day.

“Should these acts of aggression be repeated, the responses will be broader in scope and will encompass all American and Zionist targets throughout the region,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in a statement that referenced attacks in Lebanon and on Iran’s coast and vessels around the Strait of Hormuz.

Sirens sounded in several areas of Israel, sending millions running for shelter. Israel’s military said it intercepted the missiles, and multiple explosions were heard in the north. Less than an hour later, the military said people could leave areas reinforced against missile attacks.

“Iran has made a grave mistake,” Israel military spokesperson Brig Gen Effie Defrin said. The military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said it will “strike the enemy with determination as soon as the order is given”.

But Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, said US President Donald Trump told it that he doesn’t think Israel needs to respond further. Trump also told the Financial Times: “I call all the shots. He (Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots.”

Netanyahu to hold off attack for time being: US official

A senior US official said Trump had called Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately for the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private phone call, said that Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait.

Trump “got Bibi to hold off for the time being”, the official said. The official would not offer any other details of the call, and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.

Iran had warned that an attack on Beirut would renew full-scale war across West Asia, even as Pakistan and other mediators try to restart talks between Tehran and Washington.

“US forces across the Middle East remain vigilant and ready,” the US Central Command posted on X shortly before the missile launches. The US Embassy in Israel later directed employees and family members to shelter in place.

Israel’s attack on Beirut came a few days after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to a ceasefire in US-hosted talks, though Hezbollah rejected the deal. The strike on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

“The army will continue to act in all of Lebanon,” the Israel military spokesperson said.

Israel’s strikes and ground invasion in Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, and the militant group’s resistance to disarming, have complicated an overall deal to end the war in the West.

Iran says any deal must include an end to fighting in Lebanon.

Trump told a Fox News Channel reporter that he wanted the Iranians to stop firing missiles and return to the negotiating table. He also said that Israel’s strikes earlier Sunday were not coordinated with the US and “I’m not happy about it”.

Israel last week had announced it would strike the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, but urgent talks via Washington halted that on the condition that Hezbollah stop targeting Israeli border towns.

Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for firing at Israel earlier Sunday, wants the direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to end. Instead, it supports Iran’s stance that an overall ceasefire deal between Tehran and Washington include the situation in Lebanon.

Netanyahu, who seeks reelection later this year, is under heavy domestic pressure to respond to both Iran and the Hezbollah threat, which has paralysed life for thousands of residents along Israel’s northern border.

But Trump has made clear he does not want to see the war resume.

Trump said earlier Sunday in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would like to see a “more surgical attack on Hezbollah”. He also said he was “not demanding” that Lebanon be part of an overall ceasefire deal in the Iran war.

Iran continues to assert its grip on the Strait of Hormuz and the US continues its blockade of Iranian ports, with shipments of oil, natural gas and fertilizer affected and the global economy in pain.

Iran since the ceasefire took effect has launched missiles and drones at Gulf nations and said it was targeting the US military presence. After its launches against Israel, Iraq’s Civil Aviation Authority announced that the country’s airspace would close for 72 hours and Syria’s aviation authority announced a 12-hour airspace closure.

All flights from Tehran’s main international airport were suspended, the civil aviation authority said, according to the official Mizan news agency.