Three people were reported dead as of Monday morning, May 25, after a nine-story building collapsed in Angeles City, Pampanga, trapping construction workers and damaging a nearby apartelle where a Malaysian tourist was killed.
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Intensive rescue operations are being conducted more than twenty-four hours after the commercial structure in Barangay Balibago fell around 3 a.m. Sunday. Accountability is being heavily sought from the local government unit and designated building officials, as serious questions are raised regarding structural integrity and localized regulatory oversight. If strict enforcement of building codes had been continuously prioritized by the city engineering office, unless sudden and unforeseeable material fatigue occurred, such catastrophic failures could have been entirely prevented.
The Angeles City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office reported forty-seven victims, which includes twenty-six rescued individuals, three confirmed fatalities and eighteen workers who remain missing.
The Bureau of Fire Protection Region 3 clarified that the missing figure was based on an official roster of workers deployed at the site, alongside anxious reports from waiting families. Fire Superintendent Maria Leah Sajili of the bureau noted that several relatives reported their family members had not returned home after reporting for duty.
City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin announced that heavy clearing operations would be sustained from Monday to Friday to locate the missing victims. One of the emergency responder groups from the region are carefully navigating the narrow gaps in the rubble.
Efforts to cope up with the disaster have been severely hampered by the massive scale of the destruction. Various equipments, e.g., power tools, listening devices and life monitors, are actively required to cut through heavy metal tubes. Large chunks of concretes and buckled scaffoldings trapped the victims beneath the surface, with some concrete slabs measuring over 20cm thick, requiring over one hundred fifty rescue personnel on site.
The first confirmed fatality was a Malaysian tourist, Mohd Rezal bin Abdullah, sixty-five, who was trapped in an adjacent apartelle. Acting Philippine fire chief Rico Kwan Tiu explained that the guest was pinned underneath a hotel wall and managed to communicate briefly via phone.
"Unfortunately, when we retrieved him just now, he was already lifeless," Kwan Tiu stated. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority immediately dispatched rescue dogs, listening devices and structural spreaders to assist the local teams. Nicolas Torre, general manager of the agency, noted that specialized gears are necessary because massive structural elements must be safely lifted.
The Angeles City government identified the building owner as Jackson Lim, while Golden Years Construction was named as the contractor. Initial reports indicated that both parties are currently coordinating with the city government. Thorough investigations are being undertaken by authorities to determine exactly what administrative lapses would result to this tragic incident.
