BLAZE KILLS 2 CHILDREN

MOTHER LEFT HOUSE TO DO LAUNDRY

Two children were killed after they were trapped inside their burning house in Purok Kalubihan, Barangay Busay, Pinamungajan, Cebu last Friday morning.

Police identified the victims as seven-month-old Irish and twoyear-old Jellian Cabantog.

According to initial investigation, their mother Marivic, 22, went to a nearby river to wash clothes around 8 a.m.

She left her five-year-old daughter to take care of the two, but they kept on crying. This prompted the girl to seek Marivic's help at 9:55 a.m.

A neighbor, who was also doing laundry, shouted and pointed at dark smoke coming from the direction of Marivic's house.

Marivic immediately went to check. When she got there, the house, which was made of light materials, had already burned to the ground.

Marivic found the charred remains of her daughters in the middle of the rubble.

The Bureau of Fire Protection 7 believed that the children were playing with a lighter, and accidentally set light to some clothes, which may have caused the blaze.

Irish and Jellian were buried at the Pinamujahan Municipal Cemetery yesterday.

The number of children killed by fire since last year has risen to seven.

Last June, three siblings aged 19, 13, and 9 died in their two-story house in Barangay Colon, City of Naga reportedly because of electrical wiring that got soaked during a downpour.

Three-year-old twins also died in a blaze inside a subdivision in Barangay Labangon, Cebu City last November.