24 fire responders injured in Army compound blast

Firemen train their hose at the Explosives Ordnance Battalion barracks of the Philippine Army after it caught fire in Taguig City on Wednesday, May 7. A large explosion during a fire destroyed a building housing the Philippine army’s explosives and ordnance unit Wednesday, injuring more than 20 people, mostly fire fighters and soldiers, a spokesman said. AP

MANILA, Philippines—Emergency personnel responding to a fire that struck the ordnance division in a military compound in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City on Wednesday ended up needing rescue themselves, as the heat triggered an explosion near noon.

Twenty-four responders from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), fire volunteers, and members of the Philippine Army and Air Force were injured in the blast, which broke out just as the fire was being put out at the Explosives and Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit office of the Army Support Command compound shortly before 11 a.m.

No less than Army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Noel Detoyato was on site, checking on the fire response, when the building blew up—”We were only 20 meters away. We were so near we didn’t get hit by the debris, which flew further,” he said.

“I felt the blast. I thought I was hit because my body hurt. I was left sprawled back on my car,” Detoyato described.

Two Army men, who were with Detoyato and who were documenting the fire on camera, were included in the injured people rushed to the nearby Army hospital.

Most of the casualties suffered lacerations and bruises from the flying debris, although at least two sustained burns. The injured were brought to the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center, the V. Luna General Hospital, and the Taguig-Pateros District Hospital.

The explosion was so strong that pieces of cement blocks littered the field in front of the razed building. The impact had even damaged the building in the Southern Police District compound, right across Lawton Avenue. Picture frames hanging on walls in the building had fallen off, and at least one window had been broken.

The fire that struck the EOD office started around 10 a.m., and was called in at 10:28 a.m. BFP personnel, who hold office within Fort Bonifacio, and fire volunteers were able to respond quickly. The fire reached only third alarm, and after the explosion, was declared under control at 11:05 a.m.

The Ascom EOD personnel, from 10 to 15 people, had already evacuated the building before the explosion happened, Detoyato said, noting that the casualties were mostly fire responders.

“We were already standing on the side because it seemed the fire was already put out, but apparently, the heat inside caused an explosion,” Detoyato said.

Although an inventory of the office’s stockpiled ammunition has not been conducted, Detoyato estimated that the EOD warehouse would have contained 16 mm to 80 mm mortar shells that were recovered or confiscated in operations, and for “instructional purposes.”

“The [shells] were inert because they had no blasting cap. They would have been unstable,” Detyato said, explaining the danger of the stockpiled explosives.

The office would also have contained the issued armalites of the personnel, Detoyato said.

Detoyato said the explosion was akin to that of a “105 shell,” but that it was difficult to determine as yet what actually caused the blast. “Smaller explosives have a tendency for sympathetic detonation. If they detonated together, it could cause a big blast,” he pointed out.

Detoyato said fire investigators have not determined the cause of the initial fire. “We will have to ask the people in the building what they observed before the fire started,” he said.

The spokesperson said that safety officers were tasked to regularly inspect how the ammunition and explosives were being stored at EOD offices. Asked if there were lapses in this procedure for this instance, Detoyato only said: “That will be the subject of an investigation: if this was an accident.”

Detoyato said this wasn’t the first big fire in the area. Just across the EOD building lay the ruins of a building that caught fire in 2012—what used to be the main building of ASCOM, Detoyato said.

Reports reaching the Southern Police District office showed that of the injured, 12 were from the Philippine Army, nine fire volunteers, and three were from the BFP.

Philippine Army members bore the brunt of the blast, said Capt. Noel Gagala, deputy chief of the public information office of the Bureau of Fire Protection national office.

A list of casualties showed three soldiers suffered burns on 80 to 90 percent of their bodies, and another two sustained second-degree burns. Fire volunteer Julius Gallon from Camp Aguinaldo also sustained a wound on his face, near his eye, Gagala said.

The casualty count included those that were treated on the spot and those that didn’t need hospitalization, Gagala said.

One of those was a Taguig BFP personnel, Insp. Maria Leha Sajili, who despite suffering a wound on her elbow, and a swollen leg, declined to be hospitalized and continued work, tallying and identifying the injured—including herself.

Sajili said she was directing the flow of people in the area when the explosion broke out.

“I thought it was the end of the world,” a shaken Sajili told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The blast was followed by a few minutes of falling debris. “You know what heavy rain is like? It was like that, but with rocks,” Sajili described, in Filipino.

PFC Benji Dadula likewise described the “rain of rocks.” “I was already taking cover by a tree and still I got hit,” he said, motioning to his leg.

Dadula said he was clearing the area of media men when the blast broke out. “I just turned around for a second, then ‘Bang!” Dadula said he jumped behind a low hedge on the Ascom field and then crawled away.

“I saw the firemen flying off. It was like an action film,” the young soldier described. When the debris settled down, he and his peers ran back to attend to the firemen knocked to the ground by the blast.

He said one of the firemen they brought to the hospital in an ambulance had blood on the mouth. “I hope they all live. I feel bad for them. I think some of them were even volunteers,” a worried Dadula said.

As of 2 p.m., the fire had yet to be put out. “We’re making sure that not one ember is left, that there will be no rekindling of the fire,” said the Taguig fire chief, Insp. Juanito Maslang.

(With reports from Isabelle Lee, trainee)

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