TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — Five children, aged 12, 9, 5 and 3 years old and their three-month old sibling died on the spot in a fire that hit their tent shelter, inside the tent city at the coastal barangay of this city at around 12:40 a.m. yesterday.
Their mother, 38-year-old Maria Eleza Ocenar, who was injured in the incident later died in the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center, and their 6-year-old brother, nicknamed Macmac, who initially survived but with 3rd degree burns succumbed to complications by 1:48 p.m.
At noontime, while this report was dispatch, city information officer Bernardita Valenzuela told The Freeman: That the surviving boy was still fighting for his life at the hospital. She said then: “We are asking everybody to help pray that the remaining family member, the 6-year-old John Mark, survives.†The boy eventually died.
Valenzuela, said the Cebu Rolling Hills Memorial Chapels, Inc., out of compassion to the victims, had agreed to foot the funeral arrangements. Their wake will be at the house of the mother, Ma. Eleza, at Barangay Palanog, while the DSWD had sent a team to the area to determine all the things needed to help the family.
Renante, the Ocenar patriarch, was not around when the fire happened. He was reportedly working with a group of fishermen at Samar and only comes home on weekends. A source said he was already informed of the tragic incident and, as of press time, he already arrived in the city
City fire investigator, FO1 Anthony Duran, said he and the investigating personnel were able to find a kerosene lamp, which they initially believed to be the cause of the fire.
People from neighboring tents told responding firemen that they woke up to cries for help from the burning tent of the Ocenars, but the fire gobbled it so fast that it was impossible for them to save the family inside.
The Tacloban Bureau of Fire Protection men said they were on site at 12:49, just 9 minutes after a call came through their hotline, but when they arrived at the area, the fire had totally gutted the tent.
The fire happened at Barangay 88 in San Jose district of this city, in a site popularly known as “Costa Brava†(rough coast) where the tent city was put up as temporary shelters for some of the survivors of the super typhoon Yolanda devastation. It is along the roadside going to and from the Tacloban airport.
The Ocenar family were one of those who chose to stay at temporary tent shelters given out to each family or Yolanda victims by international NGOs after the typhoon. They refused to be relocated to the bunkhouses and stayed in the area where their house used to stand.
While the tragic news of the Ocenars still stunned Tacloban, another fire broke out at the commercial-residential area at corner Paterno and Burgos Streets of this city at around 11:58 a.m. yesterday.
The second fire gutted at least eight establishments, mostly boarding houses of students from a nearby college institution, and near to the historic Hotel Alejandro owned by the family of Representative Neil Benedict Montejo of An Waray partylist.
Firefighters quickly responded to the scene, and at past 2 p.m. they declared a fireout. As of press time, there were no reports of injuries while arson probers were still working to determine the cause of the fire and its cost of damage.
Initial investigation showed that it could have started in one of the boarding houses where somebody was cooking and had neglected behind a flaming stove. The fire quickly spread as it was noontime and the temperature was searing in the city at the time.