(Eagle News) — At least 24 persons were injured and two were killed in a fireworks blast in Bocaue, Bulacan that occurred before noon Wednesday, October 12, according to police reports.
The first explosion occurred around 10 a.m. in one fireworks store along McArthur Highway.
Those interviewed by Eagle News correspondent Diosal Alcejera said it felt like there was a bomb explosion and the whole area shook.
The explosion was first reported at the fireworks store of a certain Gina Gonzales.
The fire then quickly spread to other fireworks stores nearby. At least 10 stores were affected.
Nearby vehicles were also affected. At least one jeepney, one truck and a tricycle were reported to have been reached by the fire and explosions.
The passengers of a jeepney passing by the area at the time of the explosion were also among the injured. The injured were brought to the nearest hospital.
The town’s fire marshal, Senior Inspector Renan Batchine, initially put the toll at one dead, one missing and 24 injured. The sole confirmed fatality was an unidentified female, he said.
The remains of the woman were found at the blast site. Another fatality was identified as Manuel Ayala, 65 years old.
The fire reached alarm level four. It was declared under control at around 1 a.m.
Some 20 firetrucks were deployed in the area. An ambulance was also seen.
“I was hurled to the back of the shop by the force of the explosion,” Mel Berbosa de Castro, 50, her lip still bleeding and her back hurting from the blast, told AFP from her shop across the street.
“I saw a bloodied old man running away looking for his grandchild. Others were just running for their lives.”
Driver Ricky Salvador, 47, said he helped take a victim with a bloodied face to hospital.
“It was like a war zone. I saw shards of glass, nails flying up in the air. Firecrackers were flying all over,” he told AFP.
Huge and sometimes deadly fires at sprawling slums, markets and factories are common in the Philippines, where safety regulations are poorly enforced.
In May last year 72 people were killed after a huge blaze tore through a footwear factory in the northern suburbs of Manila.
In one of the country’s deadliest-ever fires, 162 people were killed and 94 were injured at a Manila disco in 1996.
(Eagle News Service, with a report from Diosal Alcejera, Bocaue Eagle News correspondent, and Agence France Presse)