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A 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed at least 32 people across the central Philippines on Tuesday, toppling buildings and historic churches and sending terrified residents into deadly stampedes.

Panic ensued as people spilled out on the street after the quake struck at 8:12 a.m. It was centered about 20 miles below Carmen town on Bohol Island, where many buildings collapsed, roads cracked up and bridges fell. Extensive damage also hit densely populated Cebu city, across the narrow strait from Bohol, causing deaths when a fish port and a market roof fell.

The quake set off a stampede in a Cebu gym where people lined up to receive government cash assistance, killing five and injuring eight others, said Neil Sanchez, provincial disaster management officer. In another city nearby, 18 people were injured in the scramble to get out of a shaking building where the assistance was being handed out.

At least 16 people died in Bohol and 15 in Cebu, officials said. Scores were injured.

"We ran out of the building, and outside, we hugged trees because the tremors were so strong," said Vilma Yorong, a Bohol provincial government employee.

"When the shaking stopped, I ran to the street and there I saw several injured people. Some were saying their church has collapsed," she told The Associated Press by phone.

As fear set in, Yorong and the others ran up a mountain, afraid a tsunami would follow the quake. "Minutes after the earthquake, people were pushing each other to go up the hill," she said.

But the quake was centered inland and did not cause a tsunami.

Offices and schools were closed for a national holiday — the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha — which may have saved lives. The earthquake also was deeper below the surface than the 6.9-magnitude temblor last year in waters near Negros Island, also in the central Philippines, that killed nearly 100 people.

Aledel Cuizon, who works for a Finnish company in Cebu, said the quake that caught her in her bedroom sounded like "a huge truck that was approaching and the rumbling sound grew louder as it got closer."

She and her neighbors ran outside, where she saw "the electric concrete poles were swaying like coconut trees." She said it lasted 15-20 seconds.

Cebu city's hospitals quickly evacuated patients in the streets, basketball courts and parks.

Cebu province, about 350 miles south of Manila, has a population of more than 2.6 million people. Cebu is the second largest city after Manila. Nearby Bohol has 1.2 million people and is popular among foreigners because of its beach and island resorts and the Chocolate Hills.

Many roads and bridges were reported damaged, but historic churches dating from the Spanish colonial period suffered the most. Among them is the country's oldest, the 16th-century Basilica of the Holy Child in Cebu, which lost its bell tower.

A 17th-century limestone church in Loboc town, southwest of Carmen, crumbled to pieces, with nearly half of it reduced to rubble.

Regional military commander Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda said that he recalled soldiers from the holiday furlough to respond to the quake. He said it damaged the pier in Tagbilaran, Bohol's provincial capital, and caused some cracks at Cebu's international airport but that navy ships and air force planes could use alternative ports to help out.

Passenger flights resumed later Tuesday after officials checked runways and buildings for damage.

A strong earthquake has left dozens of people dead in the Philippines. The temblor, whose magnitude was first reported as 7.2 and then downgraded to 7.1, struck near the city of Catigbian in the inland area of Bohol, one of the central Visayas Islands.

At least 93 people have been reported dead, and the casualty count is likely to grow as rescue and recovery teams reach areas that were cut off by rubble and other obstructions.

The earthquake struck just after 8 a.m. local time Tuesday, a national holiday observing the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. At least 10 quakes with a magnitude of 5 or higher were detected in the hours that followed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Low-rise buildings collapsed on at least two islands and historic churches cracked and crumbled during the quake," Reuters reports, "which sparked panic, cut power and transport links and forced hospitals to evacuate patients."

The quake also damaged tourist attractions, such as the famed Chocolate Hills of Bohol. A photo of the damage to one hill that was posted to Twitter by tourist Robert Michael Poole.

Churches that have stood for hundreds of years also suffered damage, including the 16th-century Basilica of the Holy Child in Cebu, The Associated Press reports.

The death toll was worsened by at least two stampedes of panicked people who had gathered to receive payments in a social welfare program for families with young children; a government agency says a four-year-old child died in one of the incidents, and that at least 35 people were injured.

The U.S. Geological Survey gives us some background on the area's tectonics:

"The Philippine Islands straddle a region of complex tectonics at the intersection of three major tectonic plates (the Philippine Sea, Sunda and Eurasia plates). As such, the islands are familiar with large and damaging earthquakes, and the region within 500 km of the October 15 earthquake has hosted 19 events of M6 or greater, a dozen of which have been shallow (0-70 km). One of these, a M 6.8 earthquake 70 km to the east of the October 15, 2013 event in 1990, caused several casualties."

Here's a way to stop hungry shoppers from leaving the store for dinner.

Brooks Brothers, the 195-year-old luxury apparel company, is looking to open a restaurant next summer adjacent to its flagship store in Manhattan, a company spokesman tells NPR. The New York Post reports that the restaurant will be a steakhouse — a fitting culinary accompaniment for the purveyor of fine business suits for the moneyed set, we think.

And it's not the only high-end retailer that's jumped into the food business. Ralph Lauren has a restaurant next to its location off Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and another in Paris. (Ironically, the Chicago incarnation features French-inspired dishes like escargot, steak tartare and bouillabaisse, while Paris' menu has a whole page for burgers and steaks.)

Tommy Bahama, a lifestyle clothing line with a tropical twist, has restaurants in about a dozen stores that serve seared ahi tuna and rum mojitos. At some mega-sized locations of outdoor recreation retailer Bass Pro Shops, customers can order hand-breaded alligator and catfish at an attached seafood grill.

Restaurants can be a terrific traffic driver, says Rob Goldberg, Tommy Bahama's senior vice president of marketing — diners peruse the merchandise while waiting; shoppers might stick around for a drink.

They also give the company another way to express its brand: not just through the colors and feel of the clothing, but also through the flavor and aroma of food, Goldberg says. "For us, the restaurant is a really rich way to tell our lifestyle story, because it touches all the senses."

Pairing clothing with food is nothing new: The former Marshall Fields in Chicago opened a restaurant on the seventh floor back in 1905, and other department stores like Macy's and Nordstrom also offer dining options.

But these more recent ventures into dining are part of a larger trend in experiential brand management, says Eric Anderson, marketing professor at Northwestern University.

"A lot of retailers are focusing heavily on managing their brands through the customer experience," Anderson says. "It's no longer just the product they sell."

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Imagine a poker table.

At one seat, China's President Xi Jinping studies his cards. At another, Russian President Vladimir Putin is stroking his chin. Asian leaders fill the other seats, each trying to win the pot, which is filled — not with poker chips — but with jobs.

That's the kind of high-stakes game that played out this week in Indonesia, where global leaders got together to discuss trade relations. Their gathering ended Tuesday, and exactly who won what is not yet clear.

But this much is known: President Obama was not at the table.

And his absence, due to budget and debt tensions in Washington, was not good for American workers. Or at least that's the assessment of the president himself, as well as many economists.

'Important To Show Up'

Economists say the president needs to be in the game, but he missed his chances at the three-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

"It's always important to show up" whenever global leaders are talking trade, said Bill Adams, senior international economist for PNC Financial Services Group.

"Sweeping trade agreements are never settled at one meeting, but they are large and complex, so you need to keep working on them," he said. "You need face time with other leaders."

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Obama concurred.

"I should have been there," Obama said. "It's like me not showing up at my own party."

Many Asian leaders had hoped to end the APEC meeting with an announcement about advances in trade deals, in particular the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the United States. But those hopes fizzled, with some Asian officials saying they fear the TPP lost momentum because Obama was not there to push it.

Obama agreed, telling reporters, "I would characterize it as missed opportunities."

Advancing a megatrade deal is particularly important at this stage of the slow U.S. economic recovery, most economists contend. That's because growth spurts typically come from:

1.) fiscal stimulus (Congress spending money for new roads and bridges)

2.) monetary stimulus (the Federal Reserve making it easy and cheap to borrow) or

3.) favorable trade deals (U.S. companies getting access to new markets).

A Key Economic Ingredient

The Government Shutdown

Without Key Jobs Data, Markets And Economists Left Guessing