An engineer was killed after he cut a large World War II-era bomb into pieces with an electrical steel cutter that detonated the bomb in the process.
Vincent Claus Degula’s corpse was blown almost beyond recognition after the bomb exploded in a friend’s house in Maligo in Polomolok town, South Cotabato.
Degula, a civil engineer, discovered the bomb in a barangay where he was overseeing an infrastructure project, according to Police Lt. Col. Marvin Duadua, chief of the Polomolok municipal police.
According to protocol, police or military explosive ordnance disposal teams are summoned to recover unexploded weaponry that is usually discovered in construction sites.
But Degula carried the bomb to the house of his friend, Joseph Namion, a mechanic and opened the rusty metal casement of the bomb.
Namion, fled his house after Degule refused to listen to his warning against using the steel cutter on the old bomb.
The loud explosion caused the villagers in Barangay Maligo to panic. according to Duadua. (RJ Espartinez)