A FOUR-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet and at least 404 people were injured by powerful firecrackers in typically rowdy New Year celebrations in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

Ranjelo Nemor was playing outside their home in Block 26, Barangay Addition Hills, Mandaluyong City, when he was hit in the back by a stray bullet.

Chief Supt. Leonardo Espina, head of the National Capital Region Police Office, said that the bullet that killed the boy came from a sumpak (homemade gun).

He said that police launched an investigation to trace the gun owner but this would take time in a country where unlicensed firearms are widespread.

“We caught 10 people firing indiscriminately. Most of them were private security guards who were drunk,” he said over dzbb radio.

Espina said that policemen found to have fired their guns to usher in the New Year would also be disciplined.

Despite the drive against gun firing on New Year’s Day, 19 persons, including Nemor, were hit by stray bullets in Metro Manila from Monday to Tuesday.  

In Quezon City, seven victims of stray bullets were taken to the East Avenue Medical Center, including a man with a leg wound, a two-year-old girl hit on the face and a seven-year-old girl hit on her head.

In Pasig City, a man was a hit by a stray bullet in the forehead.

Pasay City, meanwhile, reported four stray-bullet victims, including a pregnant woman. The Philippine General Hospital also reported four bullet injuries, while the Rizal Medical Center reported two.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said that 404 people nationwide were either burned or maimed by firecrackers, about half of them young children.

“Some of the injuries were serious and could lead to lifelong disabilities,” he said. The department of Health said that 214 of the 404 injured were in Metro Manila.

This year’s number of injuries from firecrackers was lower than the 454 recorded cases in 2012.

Dr. Enrique Tayag, Health department spokesman, said that the figures were only based through a quick count that the health department did on seven hospitals all over the metropolis.

Among them was a teenage boy whose hand had to be amputated.

“He picked up what he thought was an unlit firecracker left on the road. It exploded in his hand,” the boy’s mother, Mariel Lou Pateno, said at the packed trauma section of one government hospital.

“We hope the numbers will not rise but we are expecting more to arrive within the day,” Alfonso Nuñez, one of the doctors at the hospital who worked through the night, told reporters.

An Agence France-Presse photographer saw two men in their 50s in hospital with burns to the eyes and face due to firecrackers. A 17-year-old girl may probably lose her eyesight after being hit by a kwitis or rocket in the eye.

Majority of the reported casualties were children younger than 10 years old. In Malabon, a 12-year-old girl will undergo finger amputation after picking up an unexploded firecracker.

Chief Supt. Benito Estipona, Southern Police District director, received reports that most of the victims were injured by piccolo, one of the banned firecrackers. Estipona said that the New Year revelry in his police district was generally peaceful.  

Meanwhile, the Western Visayas Police regional office, under Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr., had recorded, as of 6 a.m. on Tuesday, 21 firecracker incidents and eight cases of stray bullets resulting in injuries.

The injuries from powerful banned firecrackers came despite orders from President Benigno Aquino 3rd to intensify police campaign against their sale and use. It is a tradition in the mostly Catholic nation of about 100 million to greet the New Year by making noise, in a belief that it will drive bad spirits away.

Espina said that 210 persons were arrested in 449 operations conducted against illegal and banned firecrackers across the metropolis. Some 64 stalls selling the contraband were closed down.

Distributors tried to outwit authorities by repacking and renaming the banned firecrackers in time for last-minute shoppers. The match-like style firecracker Piccolo was renamed “Pacquiao,” while the powerful “Five Star” was renamed  “Marquez.”

The fire department said that 12 blazes were reported on New Year’s Eve, including a school near a sprawling slum area in Manila that caught fire due to fireworks.

No one was injured in the fires although dozens of families were left homeless, the fire department center said.

This came as the city government of Manila deployed 150 garbage trucks on Tuesday to collect the trash left on the streets after the New Year’s celebration. 

Aside from the 150 garbage trucks, clean-up teams were also deployed along Rizal Park and the Quirino Grandstand, where thousands of Filipinos welcomed the New Year.