Store worker dies in Minglanilla fire

A 21-YEAR-OLD worker of a convenience store was killed after she was trapped in a burning  house in Barangay Tunghaan, Minglanilla town, southern Cebu yesterday afternoon.

The charred remains of Angel Laurito, an employee of a 7-Eleven store, was found at the doorway of her room.

“Based on her position, it showed that she tried to escape by crawling from her bed to the door,” said FO1 Fulbert Navarro of the Minglanilla Fire station.

Navarro said Laurito had burns in the body but she may have died from suffocation.

Since it was her day off, the victim might have been sleeping in her room on the second floor of the boarding house when the fire broke out at 2:06 p.m.

The fire started in a motorcycle repair shop in a commercial building owned by Benedicto Unabia.

The boarding house, also owned by Unabia, was located at the back of the commercial building.

The building housed an upholstery shop, a motorcycle shop and an office of a telecommunications company.

Apart from the boarding house, the fire also destroyed the two shops.

Letecia Borinaga, owner of the upholstery shop, told fire investigators she was in the shop when she noticed that the air was getting very warm  in the establishment.

Borinaga said she later saw piles of foam in her shop already on fire.

Borinaga said she suspected that the fire was caused by welding flux coming from the motorcycle shop.

The fire was raised to second alarm before it was contained at 2:15 p.m.

Fire investigators said damage was estimated at   P40,000.