INQUIRER FILES
MANILA, Philippines —The body of a three-year-old child who fell into a sewer was found at Accohomes Mountain Site, Barangay 176, in North Caloocan City on Sunday, according to the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Caloocan City
The incident happened on Saturday afternoon. Five siblings aged 16 to 3 were playing in the rain at Phase 10, Bagong Silang, Brgy. 176.
Their mother needed to return home for a while to use the bathroom, but when she came out, she heard her children screaming their youngest sibling had fallen into a drain hole not far from their house.
According to city authorities, the hole is about 12 inches wide.
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“The body was found at Mountain Site River, Phase 10 Accohomes, Brgy. 176, Bagong Silang, Caloocan City (approximately 500 meters away where the child disappeared) at around 1457H [2:57 p.m.] on October 15, 2023,” BFP Caloocan City said.
The recovered body was then turned over to the Caloocan Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (DRRMO) in North Caloocan City.
Meanwhile, in an interview with ABS-CBN, the child’s mother said it took long before responders from the city government to arrived to help look for their child.
Barangay officials and residents in the area were the first to respond, but they did not have the proper equipment to break through the asphalt. So they also asked for help from the city government.
“The road is very thick. We don’t have equipment here in the barangay to demolish it. We are asking the local government to send the jackhammer right now to break the concrete and dig the backhoe,” Barangay 176 Councilor Nol Quilingen said in Filipino.
In the same interview, Dr. James Lao of the Caloocan DRRMO denied the alleged slow response.
He said that they could not just immediately use a jackhammer as the location of the child needs to be determined first.