Air-con explodes and burns down bedroom in Bukit Merah flat, 2 children taken to hospital
Concerned about his daughter getting a rash, this father decided to take over an old air-con unit left behind by a neighbour.
However, after using it for about a year and a half, the air-con unit suddenly exploded and caught fire on April 27, burning down the bedroom.
The fire broke out at about 3:40pm in a rental flat at Block 110, Jalan Bukit Merah.
The father, surnamed Chen, a 34-year-old driver, told Shin Min reporters that only his wife, 19-month-old daughter and 8-year-old son were at home at the time of the incident.
He added that when his wife noticed smoke coming from the air-con unit, she quickly fled the house with her two children.
Shin Min Daily reported that the walls of the bedroom in the unit and the ceiling of the corridor outside the house were blackened with soot from the fire.
Chen said that his family only moved into that unit some four years ago.
"We live here, but we are actually not very rich. At that time, the neighbours on the same floor moved out and left the air conditioner, so I moved home and installed it," he said.
"I didn't expect that the air conditioner would explode and catch fire now."
When contacted by AsiaOne, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said that it received a report of fire on April 27 at about 3.40pm involving an air conditioner in a bedroom of a unit on the 8th floor.
SCDF extinguished the fire using a fire extinguisher and the two children were taken to KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
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ashwini.balan@asiaone.com
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