WEARING sealed chemical suits, masks, gloves and protective footwear, recovery teams carefully walked to the cordoned San Isidro National High School Monday morning on a dangerous mission to retrieve chemicals that leaked inside the school laboratory on Sunday afternoon.
Breathing through limited oxygen supply, the teams ascended to the sealed school laboratory at the fourth floor, where a wall-mounted cabinet of chemicals collapsed shortly before 3 p.m. on Sunday.
A mess of liquid and powder chemicals mixed with debris of shattered glass containers, wooden cabinet doors and rusting metal hinges met them when they opened the door to Room 401.
From how things looked, cleanup and decontamination of the five-year-old school building at the corner of Borneo and P. Binay Streets in the village of San Isidro might take days, if not weeks, authorities said.
The incident had already caused nine persons -- including five teachers, two campus security guards and two residents -- to fall ill, forced the evacuation of 20 families living within 50 meters from the school, and shut down nearby business establishments.
"When we finish collecting the surface chemicals, we would undertake monitoring and determine the concentration of chemicals there. Then we would undertake decontamination. It might take two weeks… it depends on the allowable level of concentration," said Chief Inspector Jose Embang, team leader of the Bureau of Fire Protection's (BFP) Special Rescue Unit who led the first recovery team that entered the school on Monday.
Louie Domingo, director of the non-government organization Emergency Research Center, meanwhile, said clearing would depend on the kind of chemicals that spilled and mixed together inside the laboratory.
In February, a mercury spill inside a school laboratory shut down a private school in Parañaque for three months.
"We have to get the list of chemicals to know what kinds were there inside, the amount and concentration," said Domingo, a member of the second composite team that went to the laboratory for the gradual cleanup.
"For us to clean it up, we could use dry earth (soil) before we scoop out the chemicals. And then we could wash it down when the chemicals had been cleared, but we have to make sure that the water we used would be taken out and not reach the drainage so it won't cause further damage," he told reporters.
Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay said local authorities would follow the advice of experts on the incident, the city's first involving hazardous materials.
"This is a technical matter and we will have to get guidance from those with technical know-how. We will not pretend to know everything about this so what the experts say, we will follow," Binay told reporters on site.
As of press time, 70 percent of debris inside the laboratory, including containers that remained intact, have been retrieved and placed in a garbage bag on a hallway near the contaminated room, Embang said. The chemicals would then be sorted for proper disposal, he said.
Authorities have yet to decide on the matter of disposing the hazardous waste, but Makati Department of Environmental Services chief Danilo Villas said the city government has sought the help of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. He also proposed the use of the private contractor that has been collecting medical waste from the city's hospitals to safely get rid of the spilled chemicals.
The chemical spill occurred after a wall-mounted two-layer cabinet of chemicals collapsed on Sunday afternoon causing chemical containers to shatter, said school principal Luzviminda Banag.
"Our science teacher went up to the second floor to get some materials at around 2:45 and he smelled something coming from the laboratory. He informed the guards, then when they went to Room 401 (laboratory), they saw that the hanging cabinet had fallen," Banag told the Inquirer.
Banag said chemicals stored in several glass containers in the wooden cabinet, measuring roughly three to four meters wide, included several compounds like nitric, acetic, sulfuric and acetic acids, ammonia, sulfur powder and less than 50 grams of mercury oxide.
Embang and Domingo said the interaction of these chemicals might have rendered them flammable, toxic or corrosive to the skin or to metal, but the effect has yet to be determined, including the extent of contamination their combination might cause.
Chemical samples taken from the school lab by the BFP's Hazardous Materials Recovery Team on Sunday evening were brought to the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory for identification, said Makati police chief, Superintendent Gilbert Cruz.
Those exposed to the chemicals were rushed to Ospital ng Makati's Acute Care Center (OsMak ACC), Banag said. Among them were Gilda Teologo, the school's property custodian, canteen manager Mabel Sedo, and science teacher Ramon Macuha.
Dr. Alex Hidalgo of OsMak ACC's Emergency Medicine department said those rushed to the hospital showed "general symptoms" of chemical exposure, including "flu-like" manifestations.
"The treatment we gave them was general decontamination… They were cleaned with mild soap and water, their eyes were flushed. Then we gave them supportive treatment. Like those who experienced pain, we gave them pain relievers. To those who have rashes, we gave anti-itch medication," Hidalgo told the Inquirer.
He said patients would be kept under observation in the hospital for at least 24 hours or until they are cleared for release by the National Poison Control Center of the University of the Philippines- Philippine General Hospital, which oversees poisoning cases.
Cruz said police would investigate how the cabinet collapsed and whether anyone should be held liable for the incident. Binay has ordered the Makati Health Department and the City Engineer's Office to determine how the collapse happened and whether the city would need to redesign school labs it would build.
"The liability might fall on whoever is in charge of the laboratory. We would determine if the hanging cabinet was overloaded,"
Banag, however, said the cabinet was not carrying load more than it could. She added that the school laboratory inside the city-constructed high school was already built that way when it opened five years ago.
Domingo noted that the wall-mounted lab cabinet, while built away from the door and student area within the room, would have been vulnerable to strong winds or an earthquake because of its design. Ideally, he said, chemicals should be placed on the floor and those that are non-corrosive to plastic may be stored in non-breakable plastic containers.
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