Deaths At least 266 - 279 | Cause Overloading Date 2 July 1993 Location Bocaue | |
 | ||
Also known as Bocaue River Festival Tragedy Similar Typhoon Koryn (1993), 1994 Mindoro earthquake, Typhoon Angela | ||
The Bocaue Pagoda Tragedy refers to a fatal accident that occurred on July 2, 1993 during the 1993 Bocaue River Festival in Bocaue, Bulacan, in the Philippines. The accident involved a sinking of the floating pagoda, the centerpiece of the festivities, which resulted in the drowning of more than 200 devotees.
Contents
Background
The Bocaue River Festival is an annual celebration held every first Sunday of July in Bocaue, Bulacan, in the Philippines, in honor of the Holy Cross, the Mahal na Poon ng Krus sa Wawa, found in the river in 1850. The festivities involve a decorated pagoda on top of a barge surrounded by small boats accompanying it. A replica of the holy cross is placed at the top of the pagoda.
The incident
The pagoda for the 1993 celebrations were estimated to be boarded by 800 to 1000 devotees. At 8:15 p.m, the accident occurred taking the lives of at least 266 people. The pagoda sank in the middle of the Bocaue River between the barangays Bunlo and Bambang. The pagoda was 20 feet tall.
According to witnesses many of the people on board the pagoda were forced to move to one side of the barge reacting to a kwitis (skyrocket) flying towards the pagoda. The concentrated weight of the people on board tilted the barge. The people on board the pagoda panicked as they heard the noise of crackling timber. The structure of the pagoda collapsed and gradually sank to the riverbed.
Witnesses further claimed that fishermen by the river bank drew their fishing boats towards the sinking pagoda to help save people from the pagoda. The pagoda's light was still on and its power generator was still operational as the pagoda sank causing many people to believe that electrocution caused some of the fatalities.
Aftermath
Retrieval operations for the tragedy's victims took for several days. Victims were checked for vital signs in different area hospitals. The bodies of the fatalities were identified at the town plaza and the basketball court served as a morgue. The casualties of the incident were believed to have involved entire families.
The 1994 observance of the Bocaue River Festival was significantly scaled back. The constructed pagoda for the event stood at only 6 feet tall, a sharp contrast to the 20 feet tall pagoda of the previous year. The number of participants allowed on the raft was limited to 50, with 12 boats escorting the pagoda. Security measures were heightened, with police and military lifeguards deployed along the pagoda procession's route. The festivities began in the morning, starting at 10:00 am. To pay tribute to those lost in the 1993 tragedy, relatives released flowers and candles into the river. A mass was also held for the victims. The date July 2 after the tragedy, became a day of mourning for the victims of the 1993 tragedy.
Church and local officials decided to revive the grand procession and building of a large pagoda for the 2014 edition of the festival after coming up with safety measures for the devotees. The decision is a bid to boost the local economy of Bocaue. A 48-foot or three stories-high pagoda which stands on top of three large boats rented from Malabon was built for the 2014 Bocaue River Festival. The ground floor of the pagoda covered 200 square meters. The wooden pagoda was reinforced by steel. Only 150 devotees was allowed to board the pagoda at a time and each devotee were required to register and wear a lifevest. It was previously announced that 250 devotees were to be allowed to board the pagoda.