MANILA, 20 October 2007 — Eight people were killed and 100 injured when a huge bomb ripped through a shopping mall in the Philippine capital’s financial district yesterday, police said. Panicked shoppers ran out of the Glorietta mall in the Makati district of Manila as smoke billowed out of the building shortly after noon.
Manila police chief Geary Barias said the blast killed eight people, all Filipinos, and wounded at least 100 others, including two South Koreans and a Chinese citizen. Twenty-one of the wounded have been sent home from hospital.
Bomb debris carpeted a 200-square-meter area, Barias said.
Police experts declared the building free of any more explosives early evening, allowing them to shift their work to investigating the blast, he told reporters.
Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay said the blast left a big hole. “There was an eight-meter wide hole at the ground floor and the blast also damaged the second floor of the mall. There could be more casualties,” the mayor said.
National police chief Avelino Razon said: “This was a bomb. But beyond that we can’t say anything else yet because we are still investigating.” Makati City councilor JunJun Binay said the explosion blew a hole through the roof on the second floor.
“From what I have seen it was a significant explosion and that most of the dead and injured were all employees,” he said.
Witnesses said part of a ceiling collapsed while a concrete wall was blown out. Two cars and two delivery vans were buried under wooden planks and concrete debris outside the mall.
“It was so powerful,” clothing store clerk Jeric Balendes told AFP as rescuers treated his cuts and bruises.
“The roof just collapsed on us. I could hear my three co-workers screaming. I got out through a small hole. I don’t know if they got out.”
Police stepped up security across Manila, a sprawling city of 12 million people. “I am deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and I extend my sincerest sympathies to the families of those who were killed and wounded,” President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement on national television. The military and police are “on highest alert and are fielding an additional 2,000 personnel to secure our public places and to prevent a possible similar occurrence,” she said.
“I warn those who seek to exploit this incident to destabilize our government for their selfish political motives,” she added.
The United States and Australia both offered technical help in investigating the blast. Bomb squad teams sifted through the debris looking for clues, while extra police were drafted in to divert traffic and seal off the surrounding area.
