MANILA, Philippines – The death toll in a rubber slipper factory fire in a suburb of the Philippine capital climbed to 18 on Thursday after police retrieved another 15 charred bodies from the gutted building, but dozens more remain missing and feared dead, officials said.
At least 65 have been listed as missing inside the Kentex Manufacturing Corp. factory in Valenzuela city north of Manila, said Mayor Rex Gatchalian. Three bodies were recovered shortly after the blaze was put under control Wednesday.
“The (police forensic officers) will do all they can to identify the victims because they are totally burned,” said Eduardo Nazar, village council chief of Ugong where the factory is located.
He said pictures of the victims shown to him included some whose flesh had been burned to the bones. Whatever jewelry the victims were wearing which will help in identifying them also could have melted in the heat or had fallen off, he said.
Gatchalian said retrieval of the remains began Thursday after it was suspended late Wednesday because of the heat and worries about the instability of the two-story building.
He said relatives of the missing were asked to provide lists of clothing items, body features, dental records and other items to help identify the victims.
Dionesio Candido, whose daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law and niece were among the missing, said iron grills reinforced with fencing wire covered windows on the second floor that “could prevent even cats from escaping.”
He said he was allowed by authorities to enter the gutted building, where he saw charred remains “piled on top of each other” but could not say how many.
District Fire Marshal Wilberto Rico Neil Kwan Tiu said he was among the first to reach the second floor of the gutted building after the fire and saw “numerous bodies” but could not immediately say how many.
Local media reports quoted relatives as saying their kin sent text messages saying they were on the second floor, but contact was lost shortly after.
Gatchalian said the fire was apparently ignited by sparks from welding work being done at the factory’s main entrance door, triggering an explosion of the chemicals used to make the slippers.
Workers fled to the second floor where they were trapped, he said. He was unsure if there were any fire escapes there.
Tiu, the fire marshal, said the building had other exits but apparently the workers were overwhelmed by the thick black smoke from the burning rubber and chemicals, which are highly flammable and caused the blaze to spread quickly.
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