Smelting oven explodes; 3 dead, 6 injured

SAN SIMON, Pampanga — A huge smelting oven exploded and triggered a flow of glowing, superhot liquefied steel that roasted three workers to death and seriously burned six others at a factory here last Monday night, authorities said.

News that terrorists had attacked the plant spread like wildfire, but Chief Inspector David Briones, municipal police chief, said the explosion was an accident, caused by the extreme temperature of the huge oven, which the SKK company in Barangay Sta. Monica used to smelt scrap steel.

"None of the workers were caught by the hot liquefied steel, but the heat produced was too much and caught up with some of the workers who had not much time to flee," Briones said.

PO2 Angel Pamintuan identified the fatalities as Redentor Basila, 38; Angel Arabaga, 38; and Domingo Pabilada, 48. The extreme heat from the flowing melted steel engulfed them as they were rushing to the door of the SKK plant.

Their six other co-workers were able to flee but sustained serious burns. They were identified as Nilo Ramos, Teodorico Gonzalez, Alvin Labo, Johnny Relos, Ducal Galicia and Seferino Chua.

Briones said SKK, reportedly owned by a Chinese-Filipino, did not seem negligent. "It was purely accidental and there just seemed to have been a miscalculation of the heat that was being generated in the smelting furnace," he said. — Ding Cervantes, Ric Sapnu