10 dead as warehouse wall collapses on workers’ barracks in Bulacan

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(Updated 8 p.m.)

BULACAN, Philippines – Nine construction workers and a 12-year-old boy died on Monday afternoon after a wall of a warehouse that they were building in Guiguinto town in Bulacan province collapsed on their barracks, police said.

Supt. Ernesto Cruz, Guiguinto town police chief, said the workers were resting in the barracks in Barangay (village) Ilang-Ilang at 3:30 p.m. when the warehouse’s north wall collapsed and crushed the makeshift structure made of plywood boards and galvanized iron sheets.

Cruz said rescuers had yet to identify the fatalities at past 6 p.m.

He said four workers died instantly while the boy, who might have been a relative of one of the workers, died while being taken to the Polymedic Hospital in Guiguinto.

Rescuers uncovered the remains of three more workers as they continued to search for survivors, Cruz said, citing reports by other workers in the construction site.

Guiguinto Mayor Ambrosio Cruz said the accident happened in a five-hectare private lot across a mall.

The warehouse, he said, was halfway done when it collapsed.