4 minors dead as heavy rain pummels Cebu areas

DANGER lurks everywhere for schoolchildren, like these pupils from Manipis Elementary School who walk several kilometers to reach home in the middle of a road construction that was suspended because of a landslide. TONEE DESPOJO/CEBU DAILY NEWS

CEBU CITY—At least four minors are dead at the height of a heavy downpour in this city and in a town in the province of Cebu on Monday.

In the village of Guadalupe here, William Gabihan, 15, died after he was struck by lightning while he played outside his house during the rain.

Gabihan, a third year high school student, was found lying on the ground with burns on his back.

In Argao town in southern Cebu province, three students were swept by floodwater in the mountain village of Linut-od while they were on their way home.

They were identified as Caroline Marzon, 15; Richel Ann Pasaje, 15, and Earl Kyle Sardido, 13. Marzon and Pasaje were high school students of Calagasan National High School while Sardido was a seventh grader.

The bodies of Marzon, Pasaje and Sardido were found separately.

Chief Insp. Alejandro Batobalonos, head of the Argao police station, said classes at the high school were suspended early in anticipation of the heavy downpour.

“It was like being hit by tidal waves,” said Batobalonos. “She suddenly disappeared,” he added, referring to Pasaje, whose body was found 6 a.m. yesterday pinned to a boulder by a strong river current in the village of Canbanwa.

According to PO3 Benjamin Rasaga, the three students were walking on a spillway above a river on their way home from school when water came rushing.

It rained the whole afternoon on Monday, leading to floods in this city and several areas of Cebu province.

There was no official suspension of classes on Monday in Argao but Mayor Edsel Galeos, in a phone interview, said suspending classes was the discretion of school heads.

Galeos said the tragedy that befell the three students could have been prevented had they used a footbridge by the Linut-od River, where they were swept away by floodwater.  Reports from Doris Bongcac, Jhunnex Napallacan and Carmel Loise Matus, Inquirer Visayas