CAMALIG, Albay—A man was injured after a 17th-century bell fell from a church belfry here on Saturday (July 13).
Jed Villanueva, tourism officer of this town, said the bell at St. John the Baptist Parish Church, was being rang by church worker Sam Alipio during a funeral Mass when it fell around 9 a.m.
Alipio suffered minor injuries and was brought to a hospital nearby.
The bell, about 4 inches thick and 42 inches in diameter, was estimated to weight between 300 to 500 kilograms.
Villanueva said the bell’s top was “torn into pieces.”
The stairs leading to the belfry was also crushed by the impact, Villanueva said.
The Camalig church had been declared as an important cultural property of the Philippines and a historical structure by the National Heritage Commission of the Philippines and by the National Museum. MICHAEL B. JAUCIAN/tsb