A sudden fire broke out in a flat at Block 18, Bedok South Road that caused the death of a 60-year-old woman, who failed to escape from the place on Monday night, April 30.
When Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) reached the location they evacuated 50 residents and extinguished the fire in the sixth-floor unit. Many people shared the video of the fire accident through social media.
Shin Min Daily News reported that some local residents first witnessed the smoke that was blowing from the unit and later saw the flames coming from the flat. Some of the residents also claimed that they have heard two loud explosion sound.
A 30-year-old resident, Wu said that she heard the screaming of a woman, who was seeking for help as she was trapped inside the affected unit. The screaming lasted for 15 minutes and vanished after some time as the fire raged on.
Wu said that a man, who was later identified as John tried to rescue the occupants of the unit. Later, the man said that he was chatting with his friend at a hawker centre downstairs when suddenly they saw the smoke coming out of the unit.
John immediately ran up to help those trapped residents. Even though another 74-year-old man, Guo, managed to open the wooden door of the unit, the metal gates were unable to move.
John said that they tried to open the windows and put out the fire but after a point of time they had to leave the area because of the blaze.
Guo, who is also a local resident said that he smelt something was burning on the day of the fire accident and found that smoke blowing from a nearby unit. When he opened the wooden door he saw that an altar in the unit had caught fire.
Reports said that John and Guo, both tried knocking on the door, but there was no movement in the house. As per the local residents, the deceased usually go out to work at around 5 am and they suspected that when the fire broke out the woman could have been asleep.
Later, SCDF said that they were alerted to the fire accident at around 8.22 pm and deployed a fire engine, two Red Rhinos and an ambulance, including two support vehicles to the scene.
When they entered the flat, officers found a motionless body lying on the ground. Paramedics analysed the woman's body and declared dead at the spot. However, SCDF officers extinguished the fire by using two water jets.
Police is investigating the unnatural death of the woman.
Since fire accidents are quite frequent in the country, SCDF has said that they have plans to use robots to fight fires and transporting casualties during emergency situations. They revealed this plan at the annual work plan seminar on April 18. The officials revealed that embracing a new '3+1' model comprising of three firefighters and one Red Rhino robot instead of the traditional four-member human crew.
