Boys cried for help from barred windows as fire blocked lone exit

KUALA LUMPUR — Firefighters and witnesses described scenes of horror — first of boys screaming for help behind barred windows as neighbours watched helplessly, and later of burnt bodies huddled in corners of the rooms in the Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah.

Islamic teacher Arif Mawardy said he woke up at 5.30am to hissing sounds, only to realise it was the sound of people screaming.

“The hissing sounded like a storm to me. I was with three other Islamic teachers and I woke them up to try to save the students trapped on the third floor. Unfortunately, the fire was huge and we had to run to the ground floor instead. We couldn’t save the students as there was not enough water to extinguish the fire,” recounted a teary-eyed Mr Arif.

Another witness, Ms Nurhayati Abdul Halim, spoke of her helplessness during the incident.

“I heard their screams and cries, but I could not do anything. The fire was too strong for me to do anything,” she said. “After 20 minutes of cries, their voices slowly faded.”

Ms Nurhayati, who lives opposite the school, said she heard the pupils’ cries around 5am and immediately had her son-in-law call the fire rescue department.

“I saw their little hands out of the grilled windows; crying for help.

“My in-laws rushed inside the school, but nothing could be done,” recounted Ms Nurhayati, who broke down as she related the incident. “These boys are just like my children. I see them every day and it breaks my heart that I could not do anything.

“The fire spread too fast and since the entrance and exit were at the same place, the boys were trapped inside,” Ms Nurhayati said. By the time firefighters arrived at the school, “the screams had stopped”, she added.

Mr Nik Azlan Nik Abdul Kadir, who lost a 12-year-old in the fire, hugged his sobbing wife outside the school, and said he had seen his son only the previous evening.

“He was in a jovial mood — he loved studying here,” he said, adding another of his sons had been “saved” as he had refused to attend the school for the past fortnight.

The blaze also witnessed an act of heroism as two pupils stayed back in the burning building to save a baby.

Muhammad Ihsan Husin said he was on the second floor, about to flee the fire, when he heard his supervisor’s wife screaming for help, saying that her young child was on the third floor. “His wife was shouting for someone to save the baby,” said Ihsan, who is from Penang.

“My friend climbed through the window and passed me the baby as I waited on the second floor,” he added.