Four Chinese nationals were injured in an explosion caused by a gas leak in a restaurant in Barangay San Antonio, Makati City, around 8:40 p.m. Thursday.
Police said one of the victims — Yue Qzang Cao, 45 — is still in the intensive care unit of Makati Medical Center for second degree burns.
The three other victims identified as Liang Zhang, 37; Ting Tang, 26; and Long Liun Yun, 27, are still recuperating in the said hospital for the injuries they sustained.
Two of the victims – Cao and Zhang — are employees of the restaurant, while the others were passersby, according to police.
Inspector Eduardo Labrador, BFP Makati Investigation Unit chief, said the Judianchuanba Restaurant has a BFP fire safety inspection certificate issued in 2017.
“We only found a 2017 fire safety inspection certificate on the wall of the restaurant. We did not find a 2018 and 2019 certificates there,” he said.
He said that they are still in the process of checking whether it underwent fire safety inspection in 2018 and 2019.
The BFP Makati also found out that the establishment has no gas leak detector, which is required by law.
“Definitely, they violated the Fire Code because their LPG piping system should have a gas leak detector,” he said
Labrador said that the cause of the explosion was a gas leak in the piping system of the restaurant. He added that the liquefied petroleum gas filled the restaurant, the reason why the explosion was very strong.
“The cause of the explosion was a gas leak in the piping system which was ignited by either electricity or fire. We found cigarettes butts and lighter inside the kitchen of the restaurant. They were also cooking something on the stove,” he said in an interview Friday afternoon.
The debris were thrown 20 meters away from the restaurant because of the strong explosion, he added.
The investigators, according to Labrador, learned from the employees of the restaurant that the establishment is owned by a Chinese national, not a Filipino as declared in the documents.
“We learned from the employees that the owner was not Kins Piloto Medina, a Filipino, but a Chinese national. They are very certain that the restaurant is owned by a Chinese national. We will study what necessary actions we would take against them,” he said.
Labrador said that BFP Makati may coordinate with the Bureau of Immigration to alert them should the Chinese national try to flee.
“As of now, we still don’t have his identity, but we will determine who he is,” he said. (Jel Santos)
