2-year-old boy dies in Batangas City fire
LOS BAÑOS, Laguna—A two-year-old boy died in a fire that razed 40 houses in Batangas City, Batangas province early Sunday, police said.
The victim, Arjay Bajar, was asleep when their house in Barangay (village) Sta. Clara caught fire at 2:30 a.m., said Supt. Danilo Mendoza, city police chief, in a text message.
Mendoza said it was not immediately known where Bajar’s parents were when the fire broke out. He said the boy failed to get out of the family’s burning house.
Investigators, Mendoza said, believed the fire started from a lit mosquito coil left unattended. The fire, which was put out at 4 a.m., destroyed 40 houses and damaged four others, police said.
About 177 residents who lost their homes to the fire sought shelter at the Sta. Clara Elementary School in their village.
The Batangas City fire broke out as another fire was engulfing a liquefied petroleum gas facility inside the Phoenix Petroterminals and Industrial Park Corp. in Calaca town, about an hour away. RAM
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