Bombers fail in toppling power tower

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Unidentified bombers attempted but failed to topple down on Monday a steel tower carrying high voltage power lines in Kabacan, North Cotabato night, police said.

Supt. Leo Ajero, chief of the Kabacan municipal police, said some parts of the improvised explosive device the suspects strapped on one of the columns of the steel pylon in Barangay Kayaga malfunctioned, resulting to a low impact explosion.

“Bomb experts call it low-level blast and it failed to destroy the steel column of the tower,” Ajero said.

The tower, owned by the National Grid Corp., relays power from a state-run hydro-electric plant in Bukidnon to adjoining provinces of Maguindanao and North Cotabato.

Ajero said responding policemen and Army bomb disposal operatives recovered from the scene electrical wires, four pieces of 9-volt dry cell batteries and a mobile phone, which was to be used in blasting all other IEDs planted at the base of the tower.

The mobile phone recorded two missed calls, indicating that the device attached to its ringer failed to set off the explosion of all of the IEDs to be used in destroying the tower.