GENERAL TRIAS CITY, Cavite – A male House Technology Industries (HTI) injured worker-survivor died on Saturday at a hospital days after the inferno razed billions of properties inside the factory.
Jerome Sismaet, a line leader, succumbed to severe body burns at the Divine Grace Hospital at 11 p.m. Saturday. He was the first fatality in the factory fire tragedy.
Sismaet’s demise was confirmed by Governor Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla and Senior Superintendent Arthur Velasco Bisnar, Cavite Police Provincial Office director, Cavite Crisis Management Committee (CMC) head and member, respectively.
Sismaet reportedly helped other workers escaped when fire broke out at the three-storey factory building on early Wednesday night.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) continued with the site search operation and investigation together with Scene of the Crime Operatives (SoCO) and Crime Laboratory personnel.
General Trias fire marshal Chief Inspector Ariel C. Avilla said 20 percent of the six hectare-burnt factory area had been scoured by the teams.
The local fire commander said that the site clearing operation may take at least one month due to the heavy debris and collapsed structures at the site vicinity.
Remulla recently said there will be no whitewash in the investigation of the fire tragedy as he led more than 30 media representatives to the inspection and coverage of the rubble left by the conflagration amid subsiding smoke from the dissipated fire.
EPZA officials approved for both local government officials and media to checked and gather information within prescribed safe distance from the wreckage and collapse structures, while police vans and mobile patrol escorted them.
The media however were only allowed to remain in the vehicles and no one was permitted to disembark but only take shots at vantage points.
The tour group encountered the strong stench from the burnt debris of the HTI building that houses the show room, administration offices and insulation rooms and witnessed several vans and vehicles lined up at the parking areas totally burned from the blaze in the six-hectare manufacturing complex. (ANTHONY GIRON)