CEBU CITY - At least 100 houses went up to smoke when a fire, fanned by strong winds, hit a slum area in T. Villa Street, Barangay T. Padilla here Monday afternoon, rendering hundreds of residents homeless.
As of press time, firefighters from Cebu City Fire Department and the nearby cities of Mandaue, Talisay, and Lapu-Lapu, were still battling out the fire, which is becoming hard to control due to narrow pathways and strong winds.
Barangay T. Villa is a slum area in this city where houses are mostly made up of light materials.
Crowd control personnel had to rush to the area to restrain the flow of curious onlookers who, despite the risk of getting burned, went to the interior portion of the area to take a look at the fire.
Korean students and personnel of a nearby English-language school had to evacuate their building as fire was already several meters away from the establishment as of this writing.
Fire investigators said the blaze started at the house of a policeman, identified as Bartolome Resul. The cause of the fire is yet to be determined as firefighters were still battling the blaze at past 1:45 Monday.
Several explosions, believed to have been caused by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks, forced firefighters to retreat as firetrucks had to stay on the main road due to lack of access towards the interior area.
As of press time Monday, Cebu City Fire Marshall Ismael Codilla has not declared the fire under control even as firefighters were battling it out for nearly two hours already.
