The Philippine health secretary said yesterday that firecracker injuries dropped considerably during New Year celebrations, thanks to a scare campaign that included bloody images of revelry gone wrong.
The number of Filipinos injured by firecrackers and celebratory gunfire from Dec. 21 to Jan. 1 dropped by nearly half to 439 compared with the previous year, and there were no immediate reports of deaths, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said yesterday.
It was the lowest number of injures in eight years, he said.
"Filipinos chose to be safer this year," Duque said at a news conference, which he traditionally holds on Jan. 1 to announce the gory details of firecracker blast injuries and deaths.
"The effective strategy was showing the public the incontrovertible horror of losing their limbs and possibly their lives," he said.
Last week, Duque showed the media a father and son who lost their arms to a powerful firecracker blast in 2006 in Manila. He also showed a long surgical saw, pliers and a syringe with a 12.7cm needle -- the tools used to amputate the limbs of firecracker blast victims.
Local TV networks repeatedly showed gory scenes from last year's New Year's eve celebrations, including blood-splattered victims yelling in pain in hospital emergency rooms as doctors attended to their wounds.
Organized fireworks displays in public parks and near shopping centers and the hard economic times also helped discourage many Filipinos from setting off firecrackers in their neighborhoods, officials said.
Despite the government campaign, Manila and other cities resembled war zones late on Monday as the New Year approached. Powerful firecracker blasts could be heard booming everywhere, and neighborhoods and commercial districts were shrouded in dark-gray smoke. Ambulance sirens later wailed as the wounded were brought to hospitals.
However, the explosions were over in less than an hour -- markedly shorter than in years past -- and a drizzle later helped clear the smoke from Manila.
Duque said about 30 percent of those injured by firecrackers were children under 10 years old.
He said he would ask Congress to permanently ban firecrackers in neighborhoods, but acknowledged that it would be difficult to stop the ingrained tradition, partly because thousands of poor Filipinos depend on the legal and underground firecracker industry for a living.
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