House damaged in Tondo blast; no one hurt

MANILA, Philippines—An explosion rocked a neighborhood in Tondo, Manila Wednesday night, damaging a house where a birthday party was being held, authorities said.

Nobody was reported hurt in the blast, which the Manila Police District Explosives and Ordnance Division (MPD-EOD) concluded was caused by a strong-type of pyrotechnics substance.

Reports from the MPD Juan Luna, Tondo Station 1 revealed that the explosion occurred just outside the house of 51-year-old Bernadette Meneses on Velasquez St., Tondo at around 9 p.m.

Meneses told police investigators that she and her family and several friends were celebrating a birthday in their home when the explosion occurred.

She said the blast caused their lights to flicker, some of their windows to shatter and portions of the ceiling to fall off.

They thought a grenade had exploded, she said.

MPD-EOD head Chief Inspector Oliver Navales told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that based on initial investigation, the explosion could have been from a type of firecracker packed with a large quantity of “black powder.”

“The absence of explosive fragments at the site of the blast gave us that conclusion,” Navales pointed out.

MPD station 1 personnel, however, were still conducting an investigation into the incident but initially theorized that warring groups of teenagers could have set off the explosion.