LPG tank blast injures 10 in QC

Ten residents, including four children, were injured yesterday morning after a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank exploded at a slum area in Cubao, Quezon City.

The blast occurred at past 11 a.m. when a leaking LPG tank exploded inside one of the shanties, said Superintendent Procopio Lipana, commander of the Station 7 of the Quezon City Police District.

Four of the victims identified as Russel Pranada, 42, and his wife Constancio, 45, Maria Cabante, 53 and her niece Karen, 9 were brought to the East Avenue Medical Center.

The other victims Benita Odon, 32, her son Sandy, 3, and two other relatives Asuncion, 28, and Dennis, 11, and neighbors Jenny Cabanganan, 13 and Milagros Tamayo, 21 were rushed to the Quirino Memorial Hospital.

The victims are all residents of a slum community along Ermin Garcia Street in Barangay E. Rodriguez.

The police reported that Constancio Pranada replaced an empty LPG tank with a new tank that apparently had a leak. The gas leak inside closed shanty resulted in the explosion.

Lipana said the victims suffered only burns and cuts during explosion that also affected several adjacent shanties in the crowned neighborhood.

Witness JR Tercio claimed he saw Pranada carrying Sandy Odon from his shanty shortly after the explosion.

Tercio said both the victims had a wound in the head.

Lipana said that since it was a minor explosion, the shanties were only damaged.– Reinir Padua