BANGKOK: At least three people were killed and five injured when a blast thought to be from an oxygen tank tore through a dozen buildings in a province near Bangkok yesterday, Thai police said. Police said the incident was believed to have happened when customers returned an oxygen canister to a shop in Chachoengsao province. “Three people including the shop owner were killed and of the five injured, three are in a critical condition,” said local police officer Lieutenant Colonel Prompong Theptubtim. He said the oxygen tank was bought to inflate balloons and was thought to have been shaken as it was returned.
Former mayor slain in ambush
ZAMBOANGA CITY: A former mayor of Tungawan town in Zamboanga Sibugay was killed while his wife and grandson were critically wounded when they were ambushed yesterday noon. Chief Inspector Elmer Acuna, chief of the Tetuan police station, said former Mayor Arsenio Fortich Climaco was driving his car along San Bernardino Bridge in Guiwan here when armed men on a motorcycle fired on it. Climaco, 60, was hit in the head. His wife, Helen, and grandson, Shalimar Apidol, 9, were also hit in the head. Shalimar was celebrating his birthday when the shooting happened. Police are still investigating the motive for the attack.
Bird flu claims Cambodian
PHNOM PENH: A 29-year-old man has died from bird flu in Cambodia and a toddler is critically ill with the virus after carrying sick and dead poultry from a market, health authorities said yesterday. The man died in early November in western Pailin province near the border with Thailand after being admitted to hospital with fever, the World Health Organisation and Cambodia’s Ministry of Health said. In the other case, a three-year-old boy remains seriously ill after carrying poultry from a market in central Kampong Speu province. “Investigations reveal the chickens and ducks had been sick and/or dead for about three weeks prior to the boy’s onset of illness (on November 5),” authorities said. Cambodia has reported 26 cases of H5N1 flu this year, as it battles its deadliest outbreak of the virus since it came to prominence in 2003.Agencies
