Eight tahfiz students saved from fiery end

BALING: Eight male students of Maahad Tahfiz Al- Quran Wartabiyyatul Islamiah in Telok Teduri, here, had a close shave with death when the top floor of their three- storey school hostel building caught fire early yesterday morning.

The students, aged between 12 and 20, were fortunate that one of them, Muhammad Aniq Haradie Mohd Zaki, 18, realised a fire had broken out at around 2am when going to the washroom on the ground floor.

“The was an explosion heard and power failure, I went to upstairs to check and found that the whole floor which housed the students’ hall and store was engulfed in fire.

“I alerted my schoolmates who were sleeping in the dorm on the second floor before running out to safety,” he said here yesterday.

The public relations officer of the Kedah Fire and Rescue Department, Fire Superintendent Mohamad Mustakim Mukhtar said the department received an emergency call about the incident at 2.04am before a team of 15 personnel arrived at the scene that was 10 kilometres away from the Baling Fire Station at 2.15am and brought the blaze fully under control by 2.27am.

Thefirevictimsweretemporarily housed at the school’s surau while repairs were made on the school building.

He said investigation into the actual cause of the incident and the total of losses incurred were still underway. — Bernama