The death toll was expected to rise from the magnitude-6.9 earthquake that hit at about 10 pm on Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province
Sporadic rain and damaged bridges and roads have hampered the race to save lives, officials said
"We're still in the golden hour of our search and rescue," Office of Civil Defence deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a news briefing. "There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris"
The epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 5 kilometres (3 miles), was about 19 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province, where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said
The Philippine government is considering whether to seek help from foreign governments based on an ongoing rapid damage assessment, Alejandro said
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