Huge blasts at a suburban Manila police ammunition dump injured at least 107 people, damaged several buildings and homes and set off security jitters in a capital long wary of possible terror attacks and a coup, officials said. Police ruled out sabotage or terrorism.
Late Monday's explosions, which investigators say were apparently touched off by lightning, initially raised concerns of foul play due to swirling coup rumors linked to the monthslong political crisis hounding President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
She has been accused of rigging last year's election but has denied the allegations.
PHOTO: EPA
An ammunition bunker filled with World War II vintage bombs and homemade explosives seized from Muslim militants and fishermen was obliterated by the explosions, which also damaged nearby buildings and homes in and out of Camp Bagong Diwa, police said.
The blasts shattered glass windows and ripped off parts of the roof of a dormitory for drug addicts at a rehabilitation center, hurled about 30 parked vehicles away and damaged a gas station, witnesses said.
"Initially, I thought that the camp was under attack," said metropolitan Manila police chief Vidal Querol, who was at the camp when shock waves from the blasts shattered his windows. "We later found out that there was no hostile fire, no sabotage or terrorism."
The injured included 101 patients at the drug rehabilitation clinic, four elite police officers and two civilians, police said. One of the officers narrowly escaped being hit by a slab of concrete that flew several blocks from the blast site.
Residents living in and out of the camp recalled hearing small explosions followed by two large ones that rained debris on their roofs, shattered glass windows and knocked down wall pictures and flower vases, driving many of them out into a thunderstorm.
"I heard the rain on our roof but after the deafening blasts, I heard clumps of earth hitting our roof," said Sharon Pamplona, who herded her four children out of their home a few blocks from the ammunition dump. "It felt like the end of the world."
Jody Villarias, a resident living outside the camp, said he heard two small explosions "and a third that caused an earthquake that brought us out into the rain.
Police Superintendent Warlito Tubon, explosives and ordnance disposal chief, said the destroyed munitions bunker had contained 30 50kg bags of ammonium nitrate, 420 mines, some C-4 explosives plus anti-tank ammunition.
He ruled out terrorism or sabotage based on accounts of witnesses who said a series of small and large explosions followed a blackout during a thunderstorm. Police pointed to a blackened lightning rod they said showed that lightning struck the armory.
Police Superintendent Bonaparte Francisco said about 400 of the 2,200 patients at the facility fled in panic, many of them shirtless, but that most later returned. About 54 remained unaccounted for by yesterday.
SWAT teams immediately tightened security at the camp, where suspected rebels from the al-Qaeda linked Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf are detained in a maximum-security jail. Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes sought to reassure the public overnight that the incident was an accident.
"There is nothing to be worried about. It was an accident, that's our initial findings, so we can go back to sleep," he told reporters.
The blasts occurred just hours after Arroyo left for New York to attend UN meetings and the military was placed on full alert in the capital. Reyes said an investigation was underway.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
RSS