A Catholic church balcony collapsed, killing an elderly woman and injuring 53 during a packed mass in the Philippines on Ash Wednesday, when millions of Filipinos flock to services, local disaster officials said.
One of the busiest dates on the Church calendar, the day marks the beginning of Lent in Asia's Catholic outpost.
An 80-year-old woman expired from her chest injuries at a local hospital, Gina Ayson, civil defence chief of San Jose del Monte, near Manila, told AFP.
The 30-year-old wooden gallery of the Saint Peter the Apostle church had been weakened by termites, she said.
It gave way during mass, apparently due to the added weight, plunging churchgoers to the aisle on the ground floor below, Ayson said.
City building officials discovered that a section of the collapsed structure was infested with termites," she told AFP.
"It looked fine from outside. We did not know it was being eaten from the inside."
