MAN LOSES MOTHER, SIBLINGS AND HOME IN BALIK PULAU FIRE

BALIK PULAU, May 25 (Bernama) -- A man lost his mother and two siblings simultaneously in a fire at a two-storey shophouse on Jalan Balik Pulau, here today.

The man, who wanted to be known as Rashid, 30, said the fire took the lives of his mother, Nurul Bowjiya, 58, and his brother Muhamad Ibrahim, 33, and his sister Rahbiah Jasmin, 20.

He said he is still traumatised and shocked by the triple tragedy that befell his family and it left him, an orphan and homeless.          Relating the incident, Rashid said the incident happened very quickly and the three siblings were sleeping on the top floor of the two-story shop while his mother had gone downstairs.

"My mother discovered there was smoke in the front of the house and shouted smoke several times before my brother and I rushed downstairs to save ourselves.

"Mother tried to get water to put out the fire and then she realised that my younger sister was still upstairs before she went back up (to the upstairs) followed by my brother, at that time I was already outside the shop," he said when met by reporters at Balik Pulau Hospital Forensic Unit here today.

Rashid said he tried three times to get back into the house to save his mother and two siblings but failed because the fire spread quickly and the smoke was very thick.

He said at that time he prayed that they would be found safely but as soon as he was informed that the three had died, he was speechless and even shocked because he was only one person left in the family.

"They followed the right way out, which is the front door where the fire was raging, if they followed the back door, they might have been able to save themselves," he said, holding back tears several times at the incident.

According to Rashid, the shop house is a legacy from his grandfather and the family has been trading home appliances such as mats, carpets and so on in the shop for more than 20 years.

"I'm still stuck thinking about the future, I don't know what to do, everything happened in the blink of an eye, I'm left homeless and a bag containing my family members’ identification cards which the fire department found and handed over to me," he said.

In the fire at about 7am, a mother and her two children died while another survived in the fire at a two-storey shophouse in Jalan Balik Pulau, here today.

-- BERNAMA