77-year-old man dies in Telok Blangah Crescent fire

SINGAPORE — A Chinese man in his 70s was killed after a fire broke out in a one-room flat in Block 3, Telok Blangah Crescent this morning (Oct 20).

A man in his 30s and a woman in her 80s who live a few doors away from the eighth-floor unit were sent to Singapore General Hospital for breathlessness.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it was alerted to the fire at 7.14am and it dispatched two fire bikes, two fire engines, one Red Rhino, two ambulances and one support vehicle to the scene.

As a precautionary measure, the SCDF and police officers evacuated residents from the eighth to tenth floors.

According to the SCDF, the fire was located in the living room area and firefighters had to force the door open to gain access to the unit.

Firefighters extinguished the fire with a waterjet within five minutes and found the burnt body of the 77-year-old man. Police confirmed that the man was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.

Neighbour Mr Lee Kok Hong, 59, who lives opposite the deceased, said the man lived alone and turned his siblings away whenever they visited.

“He keeps to himself most of the time and we hardly interact although we have been neighbours for 19 years,” Mr Lee said.

Madam Cheong, who lives two floors above the deceased’s unit, was the first to notice thick smoke coming out from the flat’s windows and said the air smelt like “burning rubber”.

When the 73-year-old saw the smoke, she alerted Mr Lee and the two went knocking on the deceased’s door.

Said Mr Lee: “I knocked gently on the door at first, but there was no response and there was smoke coming out, so we started banging on the door. ”

Other residents became aware of the incident only when the police began evacuating them. Resident Mr Zakaria Bujang, 54, who works in catering, said: “Around 7.30am, the police knocked on my door and said faster, faster, a house is on fire and escorted us down the block.”

The authorities are still investing the unnatural death.