One person was killed and four others were injured in a powerful explosion that ripped through a shopping mall in the southern region of Mindanao yesterday. Officials identified the lone fatality as Boyet Alcazar, an 18-year-old working at the baggage check-in counter of the KMCC mall in Kidapawan City on Mindanao island.Chief Inspector Leo Ajero, the city police chief, said initial investigation showed that the bomb was an improvised one and it was placed near the mallÂ’s main entrance.
Police said all those injured were employees of the mall. But North Cotabato Gov. Manny Pinol said a 16-year-old girl was among the wounded. An Associated Press report also identified one of the wounded as Angelie Cahandig, 22, who was shopping along with her husband at the time of the blast. “We heard a loud explosion at the package counter ... at the mall entrance,” the woman was quoted by The Associated Press as saying in a telephone interview from a clinic where they were being treated. “We and the other people began running toward the other door.”
The blast comes a week after a powerful bomb killed four people including Wahab Akbar, a congressman in the southern province of Basilan.