20170322 Fire breaks out at warehouse in Jurong; SCDF officers at scene
Singapore Mar 22 2017 “Factories”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Fire breaks out at warehouse in Jurong; SCDF officers at scene
Updated: 2017-03-22 14:55
SINGAPORE – A fire broke out at a warehouse in Tanjong Kling in Jurong on Tuesday (March 21).
Pictures and a video posted on Facebook by user Chandra Prakas show dense smoke rising from the building as a fire alarm sounds in the distance. People are also heard shouting.
ST reader Elijah Kei Cheng, 33, told The Straits Times that he was visiting the area when he noticed the smoke.
“I believe it’s from NSL OilChem, a sludge waste management company. It’s the same (type) as Eco, the previous one that caught fire,” he said.
On Feb 23, a blaze engulfed Eco Special Waste Management plant. Staff were safely evacuated in that instance.
An eyewitness, Mr Lingeshwaran Nathan, 29, who works at shipyard road nearby, came to help SCDF officers when he saw black smoke from the incident site.
He told ST at the scene that around 20 workers from NSL OilChem waste management, where the fire occurred, were evacuated to the building opposite, Natsteel.
Mr Nathan added that there appeared to be no casualties.
Another witness, Mr Charles Goh, 45, who works as a furniture assembler, said he was delivering goods nearby when he saw a black column of smoke coming from the incident site, as well as flames leaping from the fixation facility initially.
He added that he also heard a loud boom, but no further explosions followed.
There was an acrid smell that lingered in the air as smoke poured from NSL OilChem waste management’s fixation facility in Tanjong Kling Road.
Witnesses said the fire started between 12 and 12.20pm. Workers from NatSteel, which is across the road, were seen evacuating from their office as well.
In a Facebook post at 1.14pm, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) wrote that its firefighters were at the scene at 23 Tanjong Kling Road.
It added that SGSecure mobile app users and StarHub mobile subscribers within the immediate vicinity of the fire had received an advisory urging the public to stay away.
At about 2.30pm, a Hazmat response vehicle was spotted on the scene, as officers outside the company wore masks. A police cordon had also been set up along Tanjong Kling road, about about 20 SCDF officers were present, too.
SBS Transit Bus said in a tweet that bus service 249 would skip bus stops along Tanjong Kling Road due to the fire.
SCDF said in an update on its Facebook page at 2.52pm that the fire was well under control.
The Straits Times has contacted the police for more information.
ST understands that 80 people believed to be workers from the company evacuated themselves from the incident site before SCDF arrived.
SCDF was alerted to the fire at around 12.15pm and it arrived within four minutes. Around 60 officers were deployed in total.
The fire involved flammable and corrosive waste materials.
A spokesman for NSL told ST that the cause of the fire was “presently unknown but we are doing all we can to assist the authorities with investigations”.
The fire broke out at about noon at NSL’s Tanjong Kling fixation facility, which occupies an area of about 3 per cent of the entire plant complex.
This is not the first fire in the area. In 2015, a fire at a warehouse in the same area killed one person and injured seven others.
Web Source: straitstimes
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/fire-breaks-out-at-warehouse-in-jurong-scdf-officers-at-scene