Five dead in Oro fire

By URIEL QUILINGUING Contributing Editor

Cagayan de Oro - Firefighters found five bodies after a fire razed a two-floor residential building past noon today at Pres. Sergio Osmeña Street, Zone 1, Barangay 34, here.

Fire Inspector Samson Velarde, City Fire District spokesperson, said they got the call 12:31 pm and responded in dispatch, but the location is accessible, hence the need to chain their fire-hoses.

Velarde said the blaze, which reached secondalarm level, was under control at 2 p.m., thus preventing it from damaging nearby residential and commercial buildings.

It was then when charred bodies of two adults and three children were found at the second floor; the entrance door and stair leading to it gone.

Due to suffocating smoke, firefighters used self-contained breathing apparatus.

Structural damage is estimated at P50 thousand, Velarde said.

There is only one narrow pathway, in between to concrete multi-level commercial buildings, to and from the house occupied by Cagampang family.

House-owner Jenafer Cagampang named the fatalities as daughter Charice Cagampang, 25; son-in-law

Melvin Subteniente, 26; and her grandchildren Charade Subteniente, 9; Jed Cagampang, 10; and Sims Cagampang Balaba, 2.

Clyde Sas Cagampang, mother of Jed and Sims, was not in their house at that time. She was somewhere else with her two other kids.

Velarde said investigation is underway while the corpses would be autopsied.

[With a report from GMA One Mindanao]