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Firemen carry the dead
bodies of victims after a fire gutted a footwear factory in Valenzuela city in
suburban Manila, on May 13, 2015 ©Ted Aljibe (AFP)
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Seventy-two people died in a huge blaze at a footwear factory
in the Philippine capital, authorities said on Thursday, as angry relatives and
workers described sweatshop conditions including dismal fire safety standards.
Firefighters and police
pulled dozens of corpses out of the ruins of the two-storey building on
Thursday, a day after the blaze trapped the terrified workers with apparently
few exits and no fire safety training.
BBC reports:
"Many of those
retrieved were reduced to skulls and bones," national police chief
Leonardo Espina said during an emotional press conference, as local authorities
confirmed 72 people had died.
"Someone will
definitely be charged because of the deaths. It doesn't matter if it's an
accident, people died. Right now, we are investigating to clearly define what
happened. For sure, someone will be charged."
Sparks from welding
equipment used to repair a broken gate are believed to have caused the fire
when they ignited flammable chemicals stored nearby.
By early afternoon on
Thursday, 72 bodies had been pulled from the gutted building, Valenzuela mayor
Rex Gatchalian told AFP.
He said he believed this
would be close to the final death toll, as the figure matched the number of
people missing.
The building, among a
long row of factories in the rundown district of Valenzuela on the northern
edge of the Philippine capital, made cheap slippers and sandals for the local
market.
The footwear had names
such as "Havana" that sound like well-known global brands, company
employees said.
- No safety standards -
The factory workers toiled
for below minimum wage while surrounded by foul-smelling chemicals and were not
aware of fire safety standards, survivors and relatives said.
"The families can't
help but be angry about what happened. We will never forget this," Rodrigo
Nabor, whose two sisters were inside the factory and remain unaccounted for,
told AFP.
Nabor was among relatives
of factory workers waiting for body bags at a village hall that had been
converted into a makeshift morgue.
"I've lost hope that
they survived," said Nabor, 31, who works at a nearby plywood factory.
"I can't explain how
I'm feeling. I didn't sleep at all last night. I just kept walking around the
factory hoping for news."
Nabor said his sisters,
Bernardita Logronio, 32, and Jennylyn Nabor, 26, often complained of
foul-smelling chemicals in their workplace.
"They said they keep
an electric fan on to drive some of the smell away," he said.
Nabor said their pay
depended on how many sandals they finished, which could be as little as 300
pesos ($6.70) a day. Nabor's sisters each had a young child.
One survivor, 23-year-old
Lisandro Mendoza, said he escaped by running out the back door, but that the
company had not conducted any fire safety education or drills during his five
months working there.
"We were running not
knowing exactly where to go," said Mendoza.
"I was having lunch
when I saw smoke coming from the front, then I just ran and kept running."
Mendoza said he worked
12-hour days, seven days a week, for 3,500 pesos ($79), mixing chemicals.
"It's a very foul smell.
I can still smell it even if I have one face mask on top of the another,"
he said.
Another survivor, Janet
Victoriano, also described lax fire safety standards.
"I had never been
involved in a fire drill ever," Victoriano, who had worked at the factory
for five years, told DZMM radio.
Victoriano said she was
able to escape because she was near the front door when the blaze started.
Deadly fires regularly
rip through the poor areas of the Philippine capital, but mostly in shanty
homes where there are virtually no fire safety standards.
In the deadliest fire in
Manila in recent times, 162 people were killed in a huge blaze that gutted a
Manila disco in 1996.
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