ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanews/28 November) – Three persons, including a Marine soldier, were killed while 23 others, mostly guests to a wedding Monday, were wounded in a bomb explosion in a budget hotel here Sunday night.
The blast at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday destroyed one of the two buildings of the Atilano Pension House in Barangay Canelar.
Senior Supt. Edwin de Ocampo, Zamboanga City police director, said one of the slain victims was a woman who was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital while the soldier’s body was retrieved from the explosion site.
The body of Fidel Agias of Pagadian City was retrieved from the rubble at around 7 a.m. Monday after his friend, Clifford Lanipa, reported to the police that Agias was not in any of the hospitals where the victims were rushed for treatment.
Most of the hotel guests traveled to this city from Pagadian to attend Lanipa’s wedding today (Monday).
Lanipa, son of Claro, an employee of the Philippine Information Agency in Pagadian City, is getting married to a Zamboangueña.
Among those wounded were Lanipa’s father, Carlo; his mother and sister.
Ocampo said they have yet to determine the type of bomb that exploded at the second floor of one of the two buildings of the hotel.
Firefighters rushed to the hotel to extinguish the fire that followed the blast. Paramedics also rushed to the scene.
Mayor Celso Lobregat said he learned there were at least 35 guests staying in the hotel at the time of the blast, more than 20 of members of the Lanipa family, their relatives and friends. (MindaNews)
