Couple in Maguindanao town killed by powerful lightning

COTABATO CITY --- A couple was killed by a powerful lightning bolt while more than dozen houses in open fields were destroyed as heavy rains and strong winds battered the city and nearby towns on Sunday.Spouses Kabasalan and Maisa Minulan were both electrocuted to death when lightning ripped through their shanty in Barangay Nalinan in Sultan Kudarat town at exactly 5:45 p.m. Sunday amid heavy downpours. They were killed instantly according to investigators in the Sultan Kudarat municipal police station, Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, director of the Maguindanao provincial police, said Monday morning.He said Minulan, 80, and his 68-year-old wife, both ethnic Maguindanaons, were buried immediately by relatives in keeping with an Islamic tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours from the time of death.Sultan Kudarat, located in the first district of Maguindanao, is adjacent to Cotabato City, where several houses made of light materials along roads straddling through rice fields were destroyed by strong winds.Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi has dispatched relief workers to help the villagers whose houses were damaged.Strong winds also uprooted trees that feel on school buildings and concrete arterial pavements.Local officials in North Upi town, also in Maguindanao, said trees felled by strong winds obstructed sections of the North Upi-Cotabato Highway.