161 residents of community dwelling made homeless
SIBU: Over a hundred dwellers of Rumah Umpang in Ulu Bauh, Chelon in Selangau are now homeless following a fire that razed their longhouse Thursday night.
The single-storey longhouse with 25 doors (individual units) was totally destroyed and its 161 occupants are putting up with relatives.
State Fire and Rescue Services Department (Bomba) received a distress call at or about 9.59pm.
A team of 11 fire fighters led by senior fire officer Mclean C Madis from the Sungai Merah fire station was immediately dispatched to the scene.
However, due to the narrow access road leading to the longhouse, fire fighters were forced to use a pick-up truck to reach the scene.
“When our rescue team arrived at a location about 5km from the longhouse, they found the access road was too narrow to negotiate.
“Our men had to upload our fire fighting equipment onto a pick-up truck to proceed to the scene,” said a report issued by the Bomba state operations room here yesterday.
The fire fighters had to resort to pumping water from a nearby stream, the report added.
No injury or casualty was reported and Bomba’s operation ended at 3.05am.
According to Bomba, among the victims were seven babies and 70 children. The rest were adults.
