A truck escorting 30 merchants and animals crashed into a house in Barangay Guadalupe, Carcar City yesterday afternoon, killing seven people and wounding 24 others, including the driver.

The Fuso forward truck driven by Mario Famulagan, 58, experienced brake failure when attempting to descend down one of the Philippines most dangerous hills.

After the brakes went out, the truck slammed through a fence and decimated a house before flipping over and finally coming to a stop.

Police reports suggest 5 people on board the truck were killed on the spot.

Other wounded passengers were brought to local hospitals for treatment, but most didn’t make it out alive.

Dr. Nicanor Duarte, the attending doctor in the Philippine hospital, said the fatalities suffered head trauma with massive blood loss due to most of the passengers riding on top of the truck during the crash.

Most of the passengers are traders who sell livestock in the Philippines. It is understood  that some of the deceased were related, and others were neighbors.

One survivor, 50-year-old Virgilio Mier, told Sun.Star Cebu that the driver was already aware of the malfunction before the trip.

Mier, who was sitting next to the driver, said they thought they solved the problem by putting in brake fluid. Apparently that wasn’t what was wrong.

Passengers who were sitting on the railings of the truck were thrown off, some even landed in residents houses.