Grieving parents prepared for a mass burial yesterday of at least 27 schoolchildren who died after eating cassava -- a root that's poisonous if not prepared properly -- while 103 other people were hospitalized with severe stomach pain and diarrhea.
The victims, mostly aged 7 to 13, purchased the deep-fried caramelized cassava from vendors during snack time at the San Jose school in Mabini on Bohol island.
One of the two vendors also was sickened, and she remained in hospital yesterday while the other was in police custody to protect her from outraged parents, said Philip Fuderanan, the mayor's aide.
PHOTO: AP
Investigators were checking whether the vendors failed to properly cook the cassava, and looking into unconfirmed reports that tainted cooking oil was used to fry the food, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that she was "deeply saddened" and went yesterday to Mabini to console grieving parents and declare an emergency for the province so that it could draw emergency funds to assist victims' families.
"I pray to God that this will never happen again," Arroyo said in a statement. "I want the police to work with the health authorities to give me a detailed report on why and how this unfortunate incident happened."
Wailing parents left hospitals late Wednesday carrying bodies of their children wrapped in blankets, and Mabini Mayor Stephan Rances said a mass burial was planned for yesterday.
Francisca Doliente said her 9-year-old niece was given some of the cassava by her friend, then fell sick and was undergoing treatment.
"Her friend is gone. She died," Doliente told reporters.
The starchy roots of the cassava plant, a major crop in Southeast Asia, are rich in protein, minerals and vitamins A, B and C. However, it is poisonous without proper preparation. Eaten raw, the human digestive system will convert part of it into cyanide. The victims suffered severe stomach pain, then vomiting and diarrhea.
They were taken to at least four hospitals near the school in Mabini, about 610km southeast of Manila. Treatment was delayed because the nearest hospital was 30km away.
"Some said they took only two bites because it tasted bitter and the effects were felt 5-10 minutes later," said Dr. Harold Gallego of Garcia Memorial Provincial Hospital in the town of Talibon, where 47 patients were taken.
Dayrit said 27 students were confirmed dead. The vast majority of the 103 people recovering in hospital were schoolchildren, and four of them were in critical condition, hospital workers said. Those who had reached hospitals had a good chance of surviving, doctors said.
Officials of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Health Department were collecting samples of cassava at the site and drawing blood from patients for analysis, provincial health officer Reymoses Cabagnot said.
Grace Vallente said her 7-year-old nephew Noel died en route to the hospital and her 9-year-old niece Roselle was undergoing treatment.
"There are many parents here," she said from L.G. Cotamura Community Hospital in Bohol's Ubay town. "The kids who died are lined up on beds. Everybody's grief-stricken."
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
RSS