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Rescue teams in the Philippines searched for signs of life beneath the rubble of a collapsed four-storey commercial building on Tuesday after a strong earthquake shook the country's biggest island, killing at least 15 people.

Heavy lifting equipment and search dogs were used as dozens of firefighters, military and civilian rescue teams raced to shift lumps of concrete in a commercial area of Porac, about 110 km (68 miles) north of Manila, where a 6.1 magnitude earthquake damaged several buildings on Monday.

Two people were rescued there on Tuesday, adding to seven found alive and four found dead overnight in the mix of rubble and mangled metal that caved in on a ground-floor supermarket in the worst recorded incident.

Most deaths were confined to parts of Pampanga province, where the governor said investigations would be held to determine why only certain buildings were damaged while others were intact.

Porac mayor Condralito Dela Cruz said the earthquake was the most intense the town had ever experienced.

The quake, which struck at 5 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) on Monday, was initially reported as a magnitude 6.3 but was later revised down to 6.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Another, stronger earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 struck in Samar in the southern Philippines on Tuesday afternoon, according to the USGS.

There were no immediate reports of destruction there but the national seismology agency said damage could be expected from what it recorded as a 6.2 magnitude quake.