ZAMBOANGA CITY, 3 February 2007 — At least 27 people were killed and 13 injured in a tanker trucker explosion that enveloped a passenger bus yesterday in the southern province of Zamboanga del Sur, officials said.
Senior Superintendent Ramon Ochotorena, police chief of Zamboanga del Sur province, said witness accounts and documents recovered from the scene indicated the tanker was carrying compressed carbon dioxide gas. An initial police report said the truck was carrying liquified petroleum gas (LPG).
Ochotorena said passing motorists and passengers of the bus that was following the truck tried to help extricate truck crewmen on the highway in the village village of Lacupayan in Tigbao town, some 770 kilometers south of Manila.
Minutes later, at 1round 10:45 a.m., someone shouted there was a fire from beneath the truck, but before people could flee, the tanker exploded with such force that it completely demolished the vehicle and blew away the roof of the minibus and flung it to the opposite lane, Ochotorena said.
“It was blown to smithereens. You cannot see any parts of the truck here,” Ochotorena told The Associated Press by cell phone from the site.
Maj. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, commander of the army’s 1st Infantry Division, also said the explosion was so powerful that parts of the truck were found around half a kilometer around the accident site. Several vehicles, including at least two vans and five motorcycles, were also hit by the explosion, officials said.
Investigators said an electrical spark from the engine or exhaust of a passing bus may have triggered a fire that caused the explosion. Ferrer said soldiers sent to the site counted 24 bodies but a lot of body parts were strewn all over the place.
At least two other people died later in Pagadian City, the provincial capital, said provincial social welfare officer Conchita San Diego.
Tigbao Mayor Edmundo Dalid said the number of deaths could reach 50 as the bus was packed when it left Pagadian City, about 20 km away, with 55 passengers.
Mark Gleen Tahum, 24, one of the truck’s crew, said he was able to save himself by jumping off the truck before it overturned and helped pull out another crewman. He flagged down a vehicle to bring his injured companion to a hospital in Pagadian. He said they were bringing their cargo to a soft drink plant in Zamboanga City, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the south.
Merlyn Berbanio said she was riding a motorcycle driven by her husband when they were caught in traffic because of the overturned truck.
“All of sudden, there was a loud explosion and I saw thick smoke. I fell on the road. I could not get up. I could not walk,” she said by cell phone from the Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Hospital in Pagadian.
She said her right leg had been broken and a brother-in-law had been killed in the blast. Her husband was being treated at a hospital for injuries.
Tigbao police chief Inspector Usman Edding said a bomb squad from the provincial capital is helping in the investigation because of their experience in dealing with explosions, not because of any known link to possible terrorism. (With reports by Agencies)
