Fire continues to raze Manila building housing Marina office

By Ronron
May 31, 2007

Despite declaring a fire out before midnight of Wednesday, fire continued to raze on Thursday the PPL building in Manila City, which houses the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) office.

The Manila Fire Station said flames occasionally sparked yesterday but said that it is just a natural aftermath because the overhauling process is yet to be completed.

“It’s a natural ignition because of the heat contained inside and the wind that passes through. But our overhauling process is still ongoing,” said Manila City Fire Marshall Sr. Supt. Pablito Cordeta.

Among the burned portions of the seven-storey building are the second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh floors. The fire originated on the fifth floor where Marine holds office up to the seventh floor.

Cordeta and Marina Administrator Vicente Suazo, Jr. said they have yet to determine the cause of the fire.

Suazo assured the Filipino seamen that they should not worry about their papers because they are safe in the hands of travel agencies.

He said that what were kept inside the PPL building and eaten up by the fire were blank seaman’s books, number to over 260,000.

Suazo said Marina is temporary holding office at a building across PPL, which is located at the corner of UN Avenue and San Marcelino Street.

Suazo expressed frustration over the failure of the Bureau of Fire to speedily put out the fire, which started at past 4am the other day (Wednesday).

But Cordeta said their problem was the light materials contained inside the building, which caused a heavy volume of fire that their volume of water could hardly put out./DMS