At least 19 dead in Davao bomb blasts
At least 19 dead in Davao bomb blasts
Agencies, Davao, Philippines
At least 19 people were killed and more than 100 others injured on Tuesday in a bomb attack at a key airport in the rebellion- torn southern Philippines, officials and reports said.
The blast struck a shed outside the Davao airport terminal amid the backdrop of increased Muslim guerrilla activity in the region ahead of a planned deployment of U.S. anti-terror troops.
Another bomb exploded at a bus depot in Davao city but no one was injured while three others were wounded in a blast at a city health office in the nearby city of Taguma shortly after the airport attack.
The authorities shut down Davao airport as a precaution.
The relatively peaceful Davao has 1.2 million people and is the largest city of the southern Philippines.
"It's a very powerful bomb. The waiting shed literally exploded," Davao Vice Mayor Luis Bongoyan said of the airport blast.
"We have suspects and we are running after them," Mindanao police chief Edgardo Aglipay said without elaborating. Aglipay told GMA television the bomb had been planted in an abandoned rucksack.
Government-run Davao Medical Center listed 19 dead from the airport blast and more than 50 injured, including at least nine Filipinos.
Casualties at other hospitals raised the number of injured to 114, including three Americans.
The U.S. embassy in Manila said on Tuesday one American had died after being severely wounded by a powerful bomb blast at an airport in Davao.
"One of the Americans has died," a spokesman for the embassy told Reuters. But he did not know the exact condition of the three injured Americans.
Radio station DXDC placed the death toll at 30, without giving a source for the figure, which officials could not immediately confirm.
The powerful blast at about 5:15 p.m. (4:15 p.m. Jakarta time) obliterated a shed used by passengers and well-wishers outside the airport's passenger terminal, he said over ABS-CBN television.
Flag-carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) suspended flights to Davao until further notice. The last of three PAL flights to Davao for the day was recalled back to Manila about 35 minutes before touchdown, an airline statement said.
President Gloria Arroyo "strongly condemns the Davao bombing as a brazen act of terrorism, which will not go unpunished," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.
Arroyo was holding an emergency meeting of the cabinet oversight committee on internal security to discuss the government response, he added.
Separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels condemned the Davao bombing and denied responsibility.
Meanwhile in Zamboanga, the Philippine army said on Tuesday it had killed 14 Muslim separatist rebels in fresh fighting on southern Mindanao island, including 10 hit by air force bombs.
In another development, large areas of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao were blacked out for the second time in a week on Tuesday amid suspected sabotage by rebels from the country's biggest Muslim separatist group.
An estimated 2.4 million Filipinos in the major cities of Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Butuan and Cobatao were without electricity after a 138-kilovolt line tripped at about 10:45 a.m. (9:45 a.m. Jakarta time), according to the National Transmission Co. (Transco)