3 kids burn to death while parents forage for dinner

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines—Three children left by themselves at home while their parents foraged for dinner perished in a fire that gobbled up their hut in an outlying village of Cadiz City in Negros Occidental, the authorities said Friday.

The children were identified as Frencis Pelayo, 6, his younger brother Jay Marie, and half-brother Joshua Makilan, 1.

Cadiz Vice Mayor Samson Mirhan said the children were left by themselves in their  house at Sitio Aluyan in Barangay Caduhaan because their parents, Jella Pelayo and Kenneth Makilan, both 30,  were at the river to catch crabs and shellfish for dinner on Thursday.

The couple rushed back about 7 p.m. when they saw dark smoke from a distance and realized that their house was on fire.

Since their house was of nipa and bamboo, the fire gobbled it in just five minutes, Mirhan said. Pelayo and Makilan were not able to save any of the three children, who might have been asleep when the fire broke out.

Mirhan said the fire may have been triggered by embers from a stove in the house that may have been blown by the breeze and hit combustible material.

A fire was kept going on the stove to cook rice to go with the crabs and shellfish the parents had gone out to catch, he added.