7 people taken to hospital after fire engulfs Ang Mo Kio flat

SINGAPORE — Seven residents were taken to hospital on Wednesday (June 16) morning after a fire broke out at a public housing block in Ang Mo Kio.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said that it was alerted at 9.40am to the blaze at Block 123 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6.

The fire engulfed a seventh-storey unit. 

When firefighters got to the flat, where the fire was “raging”, they saw an occupant from the burning unit at a staircase landing and took the person to safety.

SCDF extinguished the fire with a water jet and two compressed-air-foam backpacks. 

It said that the fire “involved the contents of the unit”, but did not specify what these were.

About 130 residents from the fifth to ninth storeys of the block were evacuated as a precaution, SCDF said in a Facebook post.

The seven residents were taken to Singapore General Hospital in Outram, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Yishun and the National University Hospital in Kent Ridge for smoke inhalation and giddiness.

SCDF said that residents and staff members from a community home for senior citizens run by social service agency AWWA, located on the second, third and fourth storeys of the block, had already evacuated before firefighters arrived.

The authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.