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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS