TAYABAS CITY, Quezon – A farmer died and a barangay chairman was injured in a lightning strike in Barangay Ilayang Nangka, this city, on Tuesday afternoon, July 18.
Tayabas police chief Police Lt. Col. Bonna Obmerga identified the fatality as Romeo Sayam, 30.
Sayam was taken to the Tayabas Community Hospital where he was declared dead.
Obmerga said that the injured, Rowell Cabuyao de la Torre, 37, chairman of Barangay Ilayang Nangka, sustained burns in half of his body and is confined at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Tayabas Community Hospital.
The victims were seeking refuge in the rest house of De la Torre in the middle of the rice field when lightning struck them during a thunderstorm.