Fire causes evacuation of Mount Elizabeth Hospital staff at Orchard Road

Singapore—A fire in the early morning hours caused the evacuation of 60 staff members of the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Orchard Road on July 28, Sunday.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) on its Facebook page on Sunday, said shortly after half past six in the morning, it responded to a fire at 3 Mt Elizabeth Road.

Luckily enough, the fire was confined to only one office on Level 1 of Block C, and required only one water jet to put it out.

The SCDF also reported that some sixty staff members were evacuated even before the SCDF arrived, and there were fortunately no injuries resulting from the incident.

It also added the cause of the fire was electrical in origin, according to Preliminary fire investigation by SCDF, but it was not started, however, by a charging Personal Mobility Device or Power-Assisted Bicycle, unlike some recent fires.

Here is the SCDF’s full post:

[Fire @ 3 Mt Elizabeth Road]

SCDF responded to a fire at 3 Mt Elizabeth Road at about 6.33am.

The fire was confined to an office at Level 1 of Block C, and was extinguished by SCDF using one water jet.

60 staff from the immediate vicinity evacuated the area prior to SCDF’s arrival. There are no reported injuries.

Preliminary fire investigation by SCDF indicated that while the cause of the fire is of electrical origin, it is not due to Personal Mobility Devices or Power-Assisted Bicycles.

The Straits Times reported that Noel Yeo, the chief executive officer of Mount Elizabeth Hospital said that for the time being, the utmost priority of the hospital is to make sure that its staff and patients are safe and sound, and that inconvenience to the patients and their visitors are kept to a minimum.

He said,  “The hospital is working closely with SCDF to thoroughly investigate and learn from this incident. We will take all steps necessary to prevent such incidents from happening again.

We apologise for all the inconvenience caused to our patients and visitors, and to our neighbours staying around the hospital.”

He also said that Mt Elizabeth Hospital will cooperate fully with the SCDF “thoroughly investigate and learn from this incident and will take all steps necessary” to make sure a repeat does not occur.

He added, “We apologise for all the inconvenience caused to our patients and visitors, and to our neighbours staying around the hospital.”

The number of fires due to PMDs being charged in apartments has grown markedly. In 2018, 74 fires were caused by charging PMDs, while the year before that, there had only been 49 such incidents.

The cause of many of these fires is poor quality or defective batteries. / TISG

Read related: Man who died in July 18 Bukit Batok fire could be Singapore’s first PMD-related fatality