Next-door neighbours didn't know about fire

The 71-year-old was already asleep when her son came to her room and roused her.

The unit next door was on fire, he said, and they had to leave.

Much like the retiree, who gave her name only as Madam Ho, most residents of Block 338A in Taman Jurong had no idea a fire was raging in the building and many were already in bed.

They found out about the Monday night fire only when they heard residents from the opposite building shouting.

By then, the flames had grown bigger and there was the sound of breaking glass.

The fire had started in a 19th-storey unit at Block 338A, Tah Ching Road at about 11.30pm that night.

Neighbours said a couple in their 60s lived there, but they hardly socialised.

Madam Ho told The New Paper about the real-life drama.

Speaking in Cantonese, she recalled: "I panicked and as I was walking outside, I felt I couldn't breathe."

She had to catch her breath at the gate. There, she saw smoke streaming out from under her neighbours' door.

Said Madam Ho, a stout woman who walks with the help of a stick: "My heart was beating very quickly and I was very scared.

"Then, the door opened and there was a lot of black smoke. I really couldn't breathe."

She said that firefighters had to break down her neighbours' door. When they had done that, the woman who lived next door walked out, her face covered in a blanket.

Madam Ho said: "We hardly talk, but when she saw me, she said 'Aunty, my hand is very painful.' Her clothes were also black with soot."

In the unit across the corridor, Madam Maureen Chee, a retiree in her 60s, was watching TV when she heard the commotion outside.

Smoked out Looking through the peephole, she said the corridor looked smoky, but she didn't think too much about it.

"My husband said to just close the door and turn on the air-conditioner," she said.

After about 10 minutes, even the airconditioned air started to smell acrid, so she opened the door to peep out.

"A lot of thick black smoke rushed in and I started to get frightened. There was nowhere to run and I almost wanted to climb out my kitchen window to wait at the air-con compressor!"

Firefighters from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) went to her door and asked her to evacuate.

A spokesman said they received a call for assistance at about 11.45pm on Monday. Two fire engines, a Red Rhino, two support vehicles and an ambulance were sent to the scene.

A man and a woman, both in their 60s, were taken to the Singapore General Hospital for smoke inhalation and burns.

Investigations are still ongoing to determine the cause of the fire, which was limited to the flat's living room.

When TNP visited the affected unit at about 10.30am on Tuesday, there was a younger woman cleaning up the burnt out flat.

She declined to be interviewed. Next door, Madam Ho showed TNP her arowana fish, kept in a tank against the wall that she shares with the next unit.

The family have had the fish for nearly a decade and she estimated that it is worth "thousands of dollars".

"After the fire, the wall was so hot and I was scared my fish will die, so my son and I kept changing the water in the tank to keep it cool," she said.

- Additional reporting by NATASYA ISMAIL

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