PMD explodes in kids’ room, starts fire in Bukit Batok flat

Singapore — A Personal Mobility Device (PMD) that exploded in a children’s bedroom drove a family running from their flat because of the fire the explosion caused.

Fortunately, the fire was extinguished and no one was seriously injured.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) told The New Paper (TNP) that it received an alert concerning a fire on Saturday (June 19) at 5.46pm at Block 464A Bukit Batok West Avenue 8.

One of the residents of the flat, a 29-year-old health care worker known as Ms Ainn, told Lianhe Zaobao that she had seen fire and thick smoke emerging from her children’s bedroom after hearing four blasts from inside the room.

At that time, she was home with her parents and two children.

Ms Ainn and her mother then brought the children to a neighboring flat and asked the neighbours to call for help from the SCDF.

Ms Ainn’s two children, aged three and five, while unhurt, were frightened by the incident and were crying.

Her father, however, stayed and managed to put the fire out with a hose from the unit’s bathroom even before the SCDF arrived on the scene. 

A spokesman from the SCDF said, “Two adults and two children self-evacuated from the unit before SCDF’s arrival, and one person from the unit was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital.”

The person brought to the hospital was Ms Ainn’s mother, who was feeling dizzy and faint due to the smoke.

The SCDF spokesman added that the battery unit of a PMD had been involved in the fire.

Fortunately, the damage to Ms Ainn’s apartment was not extensive, and the family had no need to live elsewhere for the time being.

She told the Chinese daily, ”The damage is not too serious as the fire was contained within my children’s bedroom.

So we will still be staying in this flat for now.”

The PMD belongs to Ms Ainn’s father, who used it to get to work.

Ms Ainn had asked him not to do so, because of the risk that the devices could start fires.

After the mishap, he will no longer be using one, Ms Ainn added. 

“There has been an increasing number of fires involving PMDs these days, so I was worried about such an incident happening to us,” she said. 

/TISG

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