The death toll from a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck the central Philippines rose to 172 Friday as authorities warned it would probably climb even higher.

The tourist island of Bohol, which was the epicenter of Tuesday's quake, suffered the most with 160 people dead, the civil defense office for the region said.

Survivors of a huge earthquake that killed more than 150 people in the Philippines rummaged hopelessly Wednesday through ruins for friends and relatives, as rescue workers struggled to reach isolated communities.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake smashed the central island of Bohol on Tuesday morning, ripping apart bridges, tearing down centuries-old churches and triggering landslides that engulfed entire homes.

A powerful earthquake killed at least 93 people in the Philippines Tuesday as it generated landslides that buried homes, triggered stampedes of terrified people, and destroyed historic churches.

Fifteen of the confirmed fatalities were in Cebu, the country's second most important city and a gateway to some of its most beautiful beaches, the national disaster agency reported.

Typhoon Nari pounded the northern Philippines early Saturday, killing 13 people, ripping roofs off thousands of buildings, and leaving more than two million without power.

Nari tore into the country's northeast coast around midnight (1600 GMT Friday), toppling trees and pylons as it cut a westward swathe through the farming regions of the main island of Luzon, officials said.

A tropical storm barreling toward the northern Philippines on Friday intensified into a typhoon with destructive winds and rain threatening farmland and populated areas, including the capital, Manila.

Typhoon Nari forced U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to call off a trip Friday to the Philippines. Kerry, who was visiting Southeast Asia for regional summits, said in Brunei on Thursday he was advised by his pilots to postpone the trip.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Thursday he was postponing a visit to ally the Philippines due to a typhoon, in the latest setback to a U.S. effort to engage Asia.

"Because of the judgment of our pilots... and the approaching typhoon, we are going to postpone the trip that I was going to make to the Philippines," Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of an Asia summit in Brunei.

The United States warned its citizens Thursday of a "series of credible security threats" in the restive southern region of the Philippines, where a Muslim insurgency has raged for decades.

"Individuals associated with known extremist and insurgent groups are believed to have been conducting surveillance on a number of public locations in these areas, as possible targets of interest," the U.S. embassy in Manila said in an emergency message.

A false bomb alert snarled traffic in much of the Philippine capital Wednesday, as police stopped vehicles traveling on a major road while trying to defuse what they thought may be an explosive device.

The backpack containing the alleged bomb was found to hold nothing more than dirty clothes and other assorted items, the police investigator handling the case said.

Fugitive Muslim leader Nur Misuari has been charged with rebellion following deadly attacks by hundreds of his armed followers on a southern Philippine city, the justice minister said Wednesday.

A court in the southern city of Zamboanga has issued an arrest warrant for Misuari and three of his commanders for the siege of the city that began on September 9, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told reporters.

A bacterial epidemic caused by water contaminated with rat urine has hit a flood-ravaged region in the northern Philippines, killing six people and overwhelming local hospitals, a health official said Wednesday.

At least 132 people were infected with leptospirosis in and around the northern city of Olongapo, following deadly flash floods in the area last month, health department epidemiologist for the area Jessie Fantone told Agence France Presse.