Abalos: Heads to roll for Chinatown blaze

MANILA, Philippines — Government personnel would be held accountable for a fire in Binondo, Manila that left 11 people dead, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos said late Friday.

Abalos inspected the remains of the mixed-use building hours after the fire was put out.

Abalos questioned how the building passed government standards.

“Who inspected this? I want to see the papers. Heads will roll,” he said as he ordered the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) to submit a report on the incident.

Abalos said the BFP told him that its personnel responded in three minutes and reached the second and third floors in less than 10 minutes.

“Why did so many die? The problem is with the structure itself. Were building standards followed? What about the fire exit? If in such a short time people were suffocated, there is a safety problem,” he said.

Senior Inspector Michael Ignacio, chief of the Manila Fire District’s operations unit, told The STAR that the second and third floors of the building, reportedly used to house boarders, had dividers that were made of wood and could have helped the fire spread from the ground floor.

The five-story building is located at the corner of Carvajal and Yuchengco streets in the city’s Chinatown district, the oldest in the world.

The fourth and fifth floors were not affected by the fire, Ignacio said.

The fire official confirmed earlier reports that the fire started with a leak from a liquefied petroleum gas tank on the ground floor. More LPG tanks were found to have burned, according to television reports.

“They were preparing to cook some dishes before the fire started,” Ignacio said.

Asked if the building would be condemned, Ignacio said it is for MFD’s fire investigators and the city engineer to determine.

Ignacio noted that fire investigators have yet to find the secondary fire exit, which is required of all buildings. The exit could have been buried under debris, he added.

He confirmed that seven women and four men, including the wife of the building’s owner and two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) personnel, died of suffocation in the fire, which reached second alarm.

Crime scene investigators have yet to release the identities of the victims.

The PCG confirmed that Apprentice Seamen Ian Paul Fresado and Mark Hernandez, who were boarders in the building, died in the fire. The two men were members of the Coast Guardsman Course Class 105 and assigned at the Marine Environmental Protection Command.

The agency vowed to give assistance to the families of Fresado and Hernandez, PCG spokesman Rear Admiral Armando Balilo said.