Two children are dead while some 2,000 families are left homeless after a three-hour fire on Sunday swept through a community of informal settlers in Makati City.
Arson investigators are searching for a man identified as “Blue,” whom witnesses pointed to as the one who started the fire, according to city fire marshal Supt. Ricardo Perdigon in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
“Blue” purportedly fought with his wife and threatened to burn their house down. He rented the second floor of the house at 96-B Guijo Extension where investigators traced the origin of the fire.
The fire, which reached the general alarm, grew so big that it crossed to the next barangay, Guadalupe Viejo, because of the illegal structures at the waterway separating the two barangays.
Authorities estimate that the fire destroyed about 500 houses which were made with easily combustible materials.
The children who were killed, identified as siblings Roselyn and Robert Ariola, were left by their parents inside one of the houses that was burned. The father left them in the house because he sold vegetables at the public market.
