Two mild earthquakes shook parts of Southern Luzon and Western Visayas Sunday, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said. A magnitude-2.2 quake rocked parts of Negros Occidental in the Western Visayas Sunday morning, but state seismologists said there was no damage to property. Phivolcs said the quake was recorded at 9:28 A.M., with the epicenter 26 km west of Canlaon City in Negros Occidental. It said the quake was tectonic in origin, and was felt at Intensity I in Ara-al village in La Carlota City, Negros Occidental. It was the second quake to rock the country in the day, following the magnitude-5 shaker that was felt in parts of Southern Luzon before dawn. Phivolcs report said the first earthquake was also tectonic in origin. The earthquake was felt at intensity 2 in Puerto Galera in Mindoro Oriental and in Alabang, Muntinlupa City in southern Metro Manila. Meanwhile, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper said that Palawan, known as a paradise island for tourist, was also reported to be not-earthquake prone. “There are hardly any earthquakes in Palawan and certainly none strong enough to cause major damage. The whole island is probably the most stable area of land in the country,” it quoted Mahar Lagmay, a professor of the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences, as saying. Lagmay said there were hardly any active faults under the island compared to the rest of the country. A fault or fault line is a fracture in the rock within the earth's crust that is the causal location of most earthquakes. Palawan does have old fault lines, he said, and experts are debating whether these fault lines are active or not. Lagmay believes Palawan is stable largely because the island was once part of continental Asia which separated around 100 million years ago and drifted toward the Philippines. “The rock of the island is continental and different from other parts of the country, which is made of oceanic rock,” he said.
