An earthquake has struck the Philippines, setting off landslides, damaging buildings, killing at least four people and injuring dozens.

In Manila, hospital patients had to be evacuated and people rushed outside as the 7-magnitude quake hit the northern part of the country.

It was centred in the mountainous area of the Abra province, according to the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Renato Solidum, who described it as a major earthquake.

“The ground shook like I was on a swing, and the lights suddenly went out. We rushed out of the office, and I heard screams and some of my companions were in tears,” said Michael Brillantes, a safety officer of the Abra town of Lagangilang, near the epicentre.

“It was the most powerful quake I’ve felt, and I thought the ground would open up.”

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At least four people have died, mostly in collapsed structures, including a villager hit by falling cement slabs in his house in Abra, where another 25 were injured.

In Benguet province, a worker was killed after a small building that was under construction collapsed.

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Houses and buildings had cracked walls, including in Abra, where recently elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr planned to visit on Thursday to meet victims and officials.

Mr Marcos Jr said that he was in his presidential palace when the chandeliers started swaying.

“It was very strong,” he added.

A local photojournalist was travelling downhill with others in two vans in Mountain Province when they heard thunder-like thuds and saw an avalanche of boulders as big as a car falling ahead of them.

Harley Palangchao, 44, started taking pictures of the scene, in what he feared could be his final photos.

One person in the group was injured.

“I was thinking there should be at least a record if something happened to us,” Mr Palangchao said.

“It was a horrific experience.”

The Red Cross released a picture of a three-story building leaning toward a debris-covered road in Abra and a video taken by an eyewitness showing parts of an old church tower peeling off and falling on a hilltop.

Medical professionals and patients, some in wheelchairs, at two hospitals in Manila, were evacuated but later told it was safe to return.

The earthquake’s strength was initially 7.3 magnitude, but it was later lowered and experts said it was set off by movement in a local fault 17km (10) deep.

The Philippines lies along the Ring of Fire, an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur, while each year there are around 20 typhoons and tropical storms.

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake killed 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.

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