Fire kills 11 in oldest Chinatown in the world
Eleven people were killed after a fire broke out in the oldest Chinatown in the world, one of the deadliest fires in Metro Manila since the Kentex slipper factory blaze that killed 74 people in Valenzuela 2015.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) said the latest fire occurred on Friday morning at a five-storey residential and commercial building in Manila’s Binondo district, the oldest Chinatown in the world having been founded in 1594.
The fire that hit Pingco Building at 647 Carvajal Street Based started at 7:28 a.m. after a gas tank exploded at an eatery on the building’s ground floor.
BFP said the fire reached second alarm at 8:14 a.m., but it was declared under control at 9:31 a.m. and extinguished at 10:03 a.m.
It took less than two hours for firemen to extinguish the blaze and the authorities estimated that property damage reached about P100,000.
But after the fire was put out, investigators found six human bodies on the mezzanine floor and five others on the second floor. The authorities have not identified the fatalities at press, but barangay councilor Nelson Ty said the wife of the building’s owner was among those who perished.
In a radio interview, Fire Senior Insp. Michael Ignacio, chief of Operation of the Manila Fire District, said there was no way for the victims to escape the building because the windows were fitted with iron grills.
It was the deadliest fire in Metro Manila, since 74 workers were killed in blaze at the Kentex slipper factory in Valenzuela City on May 13, 2015.
In March 2018, six casino workers were killed at the Manila Pavilion Hotel while two dozen others were injured after the fire hit the 22-story hotel on UN Avenue in Manila.
There was a worse fire that lasted 32 hours at the New City Commercial Center mall in Davao City in 2017 when 37 call center employees and a shopping mall security officer were killed.
The deadliest fire in the country was the one that broke out in March 1996 at the Ozone Disco in Quezon City, where 162 people, mostly young people celebrating their graduations, were killed.
Following the Pingco Building fire, Manila Mayor Honey Lacuña condoled with the families of the victims and ordered the inspection of all buildings in the city.
“In response to this tragedy, I will be issuing a memorandum instructing all building and fire officials to conduct thorough inspections of all structures within the city,” Lacuña said in a statement.
“The structures at highest fire risk, especially those buildings that are at least 15 years old, will be prioritized in the inspection to determine their compliance with the National Building Code and the Revised Fire Code of the Philippines,” she added.
The inspections, according to her, would ensure strict compliance with existing building and fire regulations, “aiming to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future and to safeguard the well-being of our residents.”
