Draft:Aludía Bacsal

Aludía Bacsal (b. 1969) is a Filipino woman who is the daughter of Salvador Bacsal, both of whom survived the MV Doña Paz Tragedy.

==Biography == On December 20, 1987, in Leyte, Tacloban, Philippines, Aludía decided to leave school and spend Christmas with her father Salvador. Initially, they then find a nearby ferry to ride on: the Doña Paz.

As more passengers came on deck, the ship became overcrowded. Aludía stated the condition as: “There was so many people. We were like cockroaches and ants. There was a family crowded in one cot. There was no space to lie down, hardly any space to sleep.”

At the time the oil tanker MT Vector and Doña Paz have collided, Aludía didn’t know what actually happened, except hearing a clash between the ships.

As the fiery inferno engulfs both vessels, Salvador was able to run to Aludía as the pair had jumped into the water. However, little did they know the oil also leaked info the water and it too quickly ignited.

Aludía had temporarily lost track of her father and began panicking about the water boiling the survivors trying to escape. Luckily for Aludía she began to swim away and reach to her father. Her skin had accidentally been peeled off as Salvador tried to grab her to safety, so he avoided doing so.

Help didn’t arrive until another several hours later, when another Don Claudio found the stranded 27 people surviving covered in injuries by burns to be tended to. Aludía and Salvador were been given medical assistance to their second degree burns, even for Aludía having a scar on her right eye.

Mentions
Like several survivors of the Doña Paz incident who have expressed their accounts, Aludía and her father had been in the documentary Asia’s Titanic.