The temblor sent holiday shoppers fleeing from malls in a panic, with people evacuating homes and other buildings as well, according to reports.

The first reported fatality was a 6-year-old girl, who was crushed when a wall collapsed on her, Vincent Fernandez, mayor of Matanao town in Davao del Sur province, near the epicentre, told Radio DZMM, according to Reuters.

The quake struck an area about 3.7 miles northwest of Padada town in Davao del Sur province at a depth of 18 miles, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who is from Davao, was in the city when the quake struck but was said to be OK.

“He and his daughter Kitty were in their house when the quake struck,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo told Reuters. “First Lady Honeylet was on her way home when the ground trembled. She said her car was swaying. She is unhurt.”

It was the latest in a series of earthquakes to hit the area in recent months, Reuters reported.

Ricardo Jalad, who heads the Office of Civil Defense, said his office received an initial report that a small three-story building collapsed in Padada as the ground shook and that authorities were checking if people got trapped inside. The building housed a grocery store, Jalad told The Associated Press, without elaborating.

​​​​​​​Leighton Angcan, a resident of Padada, told Reuters he witnessed the collapse.

“I saw the building when it fell,” Angcansaid. “It was the tallest here and it was really destroyed. I saw people running outside.”

Officials in the southern cities of Davao and Cotabato, where the quake was felt strongly, suspended classes for Monday to allow checks on the stability of school buildings. Some cities and town lost their power due to the quake, officials said.

The Philippine archipelago lies on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

Polls were officially open at 6am local time (22:00 GMT on Sunday) and will close at 6pm (10:00 GMT).

More than 60 million Filipinos are eligible and registered to vote in the midterm polls, with roughly 43,000 candidates going for some 18,000 government posts.

Voter surveys for most preferred candidate by private pollsters predict a favourable result for the administration, with its senatorial candidates poised to win up to two-thirds of the contested seats.

Critics have so far expressed fears that a win for Duterte’s allies could reduce the Senate’s independence and prevent it from keeping a check on the president, whom they expect to further push for his platforms as his single six-year term enters its home run.

“Clearly, there are few who make a stand in the government nowadays,” said Senator Leila De Lima, jailed for illegal drug charges after she ran an investigation on thousands of killings in Duterte’s “war on drugs”.

“Our institutions lack voices for justice and truth. Many fear persecution and choose to kowtow just to stay in power,” she said in a statement on Monday.

One out of four incumbent opposition senators, De Lima urged voters to “reject the liars, the corrupt, the plunderers!”

This was a clear jab at Duterte’s senatorial slate, which includes two former senators charged with plunder and a daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.