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 the 1800s. 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 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.
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 downed 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, awayward sky rocket, 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 was heard. The structure of the pagoda collapse 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.
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