One person was killed and 41 injured on Sunday when a powerful aftershock hit a southern Philippine city still recovering from a quake last month, authorities said.

The 5.9-magnitude quake struck the southern city of Surigao and surrounding areas, causing two houses and several walls to collapse, government seismologists and civil defence officers said.

A 65-year-old woman died of a heart attack while 41 people were treated for injuries mostly caused by falling objects, civil defence officials said.

The quake also knocked out power for several hours in the city of 152,000 people.

It was just one of over a hundred aftershocks to hit Surigao City on Mindanao island since a 6.5-magnitude quake on February 10 left eight dead and over 250 injured.

Its epicentre was outside Surigao City in the same area as the epicentre of last month's tremor, the government seismology office said.

The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

Before the February 10 quake, the last lethal one to hit the country was a 7.1-magnitude tremor that left over 220 people dead and destroyed historic churches when it struck the central islands in October 2013.

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