Nineteen killed in Filipino airport bomb blast

A POWERFUL bomb hidden in a backpack exploded yesterday at an airport in the southern Philippines, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 100, including three Americans, authorities said. The government called it a “brazen act of terrorism.”

With many of the injured in serious condition, officials feared the death toll could rise. No one claimed responsibility for the blast at Davao airport on Mindanao island. But the military has blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels for a string of attacks, including a car-bombing at nearby Cotabato airport last month that killed one woman.

The dead included a boy, a girl, nine men and seven women, officials said.

Davao civil defence spokeswoman Susan Madrid said the explosion occurred at 5:20pm local time as dozens of people waited for a plane to arrive. Police later said a number of arrests had been made.

“It was a very, very loud explosion,” Terry Labado, an airport official said. “I saw bodies flying. We saw many dead.”

An airport security official, who did not want to be identified, said the bomb rocked the front of the terminal building, smashing windows and causing considerable damage.

“It happened ... a few minutes after a Cebu Pacific flight arrived and people packed the waiting area. There were many people killed. I saw six persons killed on the spot,” the official said.

Madrid said 18 people were killed and more than 100 were injured. One hospital alone reported 91 casualties.

Two Americans, Barbara Stevens, 33, and her nine-month-old son Nathan, were brought to Davao Doctors Hospital, hospital staff said. Another American, identified as William Hyde, was treated for multiple injuries at Davao Medical Centre, Dr Manuel Tan said.

TV footage showed the waiting stand in front of the terminal building wrecked by the blast, metal pieces strewn on the road. The injured included young children.

National Police Deputy Chief Edgar Aglipay told a Manila radio station that the explosion was caused by a bomb hidden inside a backpack.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “strongly condemns the Davao bombing as a brazen act of terrorism which shall not go unpunished,” her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

Arroyo called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet oversight committee on internal security.