A person, who was living alone in an 11th storey flat in Tampines, died after a fire accident took place on Sunday night, May 27. Reports stated that the deceased, Sim Buay Piak kept several things inside his three-room Housing Board flat.
The Singapore Civil defence Force (SCDF) and the local police said that they were alerted to the fire incident at around 9.25 pm that took place at Block 157 Tampines Street 12. To extinguish the blaze, the SCDF firefighters used a water jet and finally took control over the situation. Later, police stated that when the paramedics at that scene diagnosed the 59-year-old man, they pronounced him dead.
As per the Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Wanbao, the victim of this incident, Sim, used to collect paper and other old items, such as electric fan, other old items and bed frame, including refrigerators. The neighbours said that he had so many items that the space in his living room was extremely less. They also complained to the town council about his items, which blocked the common corridors. But, it is not yet clear whether any of these old items caused the fire accident.
A neighbour of the victim, a 55-year-old private hire driver, said that at that time of the incident he was having his dinner and suddenly noticed the strong burning smell. When he went to investigate what exactly happened, the man found that the corridor was covered with smoke. After seeing the situation he went to the ground floor with his wife and children.
Shin Min reported that the officers found Sim's body from the toilet area and they also believed that the fire started from the living room of that flat. The rescue officers successfully shifted 155 residents to a safe location.
However, on Monday the workers were seen cleaning the flat but a strong smoke smell is still there in the area. The police investigation is going on.
In this month alone, this is the second fire accident case, which occurred inside a flat. Earlier, on May 21 a fire incident took place at the Pinnacle@Duxton in Tanjong Pagar and caused injuries to people, who were rescued from the bedroom of a 48th-floor unit.
