The death toll from a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines rose to 69 on Wednesday (Oct 1), with injured patients overwhelming hospitals on the island of Cebu as workers carried dozens of body bags away in the chaotic aftermath.

The shallow magnitude 6.9 quake struck at 9.59pm on Tuesday off the island's northern end near Bogo, a city of 90,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Injured children cried and adults screamed while receiving treatment on beds laid out beneath blue tents on the driveway of the Cebu Provincial Hospital in Bogo.

They had been wheeled out of the building amid fears of further harm as hundreds of aftershocks rocked the region overnight.

Nearby, hospital workers carried black body bags on stretchers into vans that will take them to local mortuaries, AFP journalists saw.

A civil defence official said the death toll had risen to 69, citing data from Cebu province.

Civil defence deputy administrator Raffy Alejandro said in a briefing that the number of dead remains "fluid" as more reports come in from responders.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council earlier listed 147 injured across the central islands, where 22 buildings were damaged.

Rescuer Teddy Fontillas, 56, told AFP he had not slept a wink, adding some patients had to be moved to other hospitals because the one in Bogo was already overflowing.

"We are already overwhelmed, so we have to bring them to the city," he said, referring to the provincial capital Cebu, some 100km to the south.

"I'm already struggling, but what we are doing is necessary to help our patients," he added.

"Because of the high volume of patients with serious injuries, the medical staff tended to some of them outside the hospital," Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro posted on her official Facebook page.

Dramatic footage filmed by residents and widely shared on social media showed an old Catholic church on Bantayan island near Cebu adorned with a string of light bulbs swaying wildly shortly before its belfry tumbled into the courtyard.

"I heard a loud booming noise from the direction of the church then I saw rocks falling from the structure. Luckily no one got hurt," Martham Pacilan, 25, who was nearby when the belfry collapsed, told AFP.

Local television showed riders being forced to dismount from their motorcycles and hold onto the railings for dear life as a Cebu bridge violently rocked.