MANILA (NEW YORK TIMES)

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines on Monday, causing buildings to collapse and triggering tsunami warnings in the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

The quake struck around 7:37am local time, about 15 miles southwest of Burias, Philippines, according to the US Geological Survey. There were reports of aftershocks in the area.

Social media footage showed a shopping plaza crumbling into a heap in General Santos City in the Philippines. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but the USGS warned that there was a reasonable chance of some fatalities based on the earthquake’s severity and location, and building construction.

Nena Santos, a 72-year-old lawyer in General Santos, on the southern tip of Mindanao, was on her way to the airport in a car when the quake struck. The region is part of the Philippines’ most earthquake-prone areas. She said it was the strongest she had ever experienced and it felt like that the shaking lasted five minutes.

"I just closed my eyes and said: ‘Lord, please, enough,’” Santos said by telephone.

She added that she saw collapsed buildings, numerous police cars and ambulances rushing through the streets, and students screaming outside their schools.

The quake struck on the first day of school after a two-month break. Video footage showed terrified elementary school students crying after a makeshift roof of a building outside their school collapsed. Some residents in the affected areas reported power outages.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines said in a statement that he had ordered schools to be suspended in all affected areas in Mindanao, and that the government was coordinating its disaster response.

Residents of the affected provinces in the Philippines were ordered to move to higher ground after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warned of possible waves of up to 3 metres. The agency also said that waves of up to 1 metre were possible in some parts of Malaysia.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a similar tsunami advisory for a wide stretch of the coast in Ibaraki prefecture, in eastern Japan, to the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, saying that waves of up to 1 metre may hit the affected areas. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency also warned of a possible tsunami.

A tsunami advisory was also issued for Guam, according to the US Tsunami Warning System.

The Philippines is prone to earthquakes, as it is part of the "Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped chain of seismologically and geologically active islands that surround the Pacific Ocean.

Last October, a strong earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Mindanao, killing at least seven people and injuring hundreds.