Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Blaze levels shanties beside old jail; lamp eyed as source
A fire broke out late last night near the old provincial jail building in Sitio Sampaguita, Barangay Tejero, Cebu City, razing a still undetermined number of shanties.
Cebu City Fire Marshal Ysmael Codilla said he decided to place the fire under a general alarm status, considering the number of residents in the area.
The Cebu City Fire Department received the call for help at 10:47 p.m. The fire, the city’s first for this month, was declared under control 37 minutes later.
As of press time, no casualties or injuries were reported. Firefighters also could not give yet an estimate on the amount of damage to property or how many were left homeless.
Most houses in the area were made of light materials.
A radio dyDD report said the fire first broke out beside the perimeter fence of the old provincial jail, a thickly populated area.
The same report quoted residents as saying that the fire started in the house of the Peña family. The Peñas reportedly do not have an electrical connection and use kerosene lamps.
The cause of the fire, however, is still being investigated.
Codilla said firemen had a hard time penetrating the area because of narrow roads, which were also blocked by residents and their belongings, and curious onlookers.
Firefighters from Cebu City and the Chinese-Filipino Fire Brigade had to connect their hoses just to penetrate the interior portion of the fire scene. (RCT)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 5, 2006 issue)
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