JOHOR BARU: A couple watched in horror as their 21-year-old daughter was killed in a pre-dawn fire that engulfed their home in Skudai yesterday.
College student Ho Whui Ling, an accountancy student in Singapore and the youngest among three siblings, was trapped in the house in the 4am incident.
Her seven other family members managed to escape unhurt.
The victim’s father, retiree Ho Nee Lia, said that he and his wife were awakened by the smell of smoke coming from the ground floor.
The 60-year-old father of three said that as soon as he noticed the fire downstairs he rushed to wake up his family.
Fire damage: Residents looking at the damage caused by a pre-dawn fire at a house in Taman Sri Puteri, Skudai, yesterday in which Whui Ling (inset) was killed. “I went to get my three-year-old granddaughter and nine-month-old grandson before I woke both my sons and daughter in-law,” he said.
He added that before the house was overwhelmed in smoke, he went to Whui Ling’s room and banged on her door to wake her but there was no response.
By that time, the smoke was so thick that he had to run out of the house without Whui Ling.
Johor Fire and Rescue Department senior fire officer C. Kesavan said his men discovered Whui Ling’s body in her room in the upper floor of the house.
It is understood that her body did not show any signs of burns, indicating that she died from suffocation.
Kesavan said they dispatched three vehicles and 19 firemen from the Johor Fire and Rescue Department headquarters.
He said that when firemen arrived at the scene, fire had spread from the living room area to the porch and stairwell of the double-storey terrace house.
“We were told there were seven people trapped in the house,” he said, adding that firemen rescued one of the occupants while six of the family members escaped on their own.
He said the fire damaged three of the family’s cars and most of the ground floor of the house.
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