An offshore earthquake of magnitude 6.9 has collapsed walls of houses and buildings in a central Philippine province, killing at least 20 people.

The tremor late on Tuesday also injured many others and sent residents scrambling out of homes into darkness as the intense shaking cut off power, officials said.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which was set off by a local fault, was about 17km northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where at least 14 residents died, disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot told The Associated Press.

The death toll in Bogo was expected to rise. Workers were trying to transport a backhoe to hasten search and rescue efforts in a cluster of shanties in a mountain village hit by a landslide and boulders, he said.

"It's hard to move

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