Forty-five people have died in a huge blaze at a
footwear factory in the Philippine capital and 26
others remain missing, authorities said on
Thursday, as grieving relatives described
sweatshop conditions and poor fire safety
standards.
Rescue workers pulled dozens of corpses out of
the ruins of the two-storey building in Manila,
many of whom were believed to have been
trapped on the second floor after the blaze broke
out just after noon on Wednesday.
“Many of those retrieved were reduced to skulls
and bones,” national police chief Leonardo Espina
said during an emotional press conference, as city
authorities confirmed that 45 bodies had so far
been found.
“Someone will definitely be charged because of
the deaths. It doesn’t matter if it’s an accident,
people died. Right now, we are investigating to
clearly define what happened. For sure, someone
will be charged.”
Sparks from welding equipment used to repair a
broken gate are believed to have caused the fire
when they ignited flammable chemicals stored
nearby.
The building, among a long row of factories in the
rundown district of Valenzuela on the northern
edge of the Philippine capital, made cheap
slippers and sandals for the local market.
The footwear had names such as “Havana” that
sound like well-known global brands, company
employees said.
– No safety standards –
The factory workers toiled for as little as 300
pesos (US$6.70) a day routinely surrounded by
foul-smelling chemicals and were not aware of
fire safety standards, survivors and relatives said.
“The families can’t help but be angry about what
happened. We will never forget this,” Rodrigo
Nabor, whose two sisters were inside the factory
and remain unaccounted for, told AFP.
Nabor was among relatives of factory workers
waiting for body bags at a village hall that had
been converted into a makeshift morgue.
“I’ve lost hope that they survived,” said Nabor, 31,
who works at a nearby plywood factory.
“I can’t explain how I’m feeling. I didn’t sleep at
all last night. I just kept walking around the
factory hoping for news.”
Nabor said his sisters, Bernardita Logronio, 32,
and Jennylyn Nabor, 26, often complained of foul-
smelling chemicals in their workplace.
“They said they keep an electric fan on to drive
some of the smell away,” he said.
Nabor said their pay depended on how many
sandals they finished, which could be as little as
300 pesos a day. Nabor’s sisters each had a
young child.
One survivor, Janet Victoriano, signalled lax fire
safety standards may have contributed to the
high death toll.
“I had never been involved in a fire drill ever,”
Victoriano, who had worked at the factory for five
years, told DZMM radio.
Victoriano said she was able to escape because
she was near the front door when the blaze
started.
“The building was totally damaged, the roofs
caved in and portions of the second floor
collapsed,” the city’s fire marshal, Senior
Superintendent Rico Kwantiu, told AFP.
Valenzuela mayor Rex Gatchalian told reporters
that rescue workers would continue scouring the
building on Thursday for the 26 people still
missing, while also checking to see whether they
had escaped.
“The city government is still praying and hoping
some of them must have gotten out,” Gatchalian
said.
Deadly fires regularly rip through the poor shanty
areas of the Philippine capital, where there are
virtually no fire safety standards.
In the deadliest fire in Manila in recent times, 162
people were killed in a huge blaze that gutted a
Manila disco in 1996.
Source:www.punchng.com
No comments:
Post a Comment