Joyce Lim Straits Times 27 Mar 13;
A MAN had to be rescued last night after four vessels caught fire at a shipyard.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) rushed to Tanoto Shipyard, off Shipyard Road, after being informed of the blaze at around 9.20pm.
Officers arrived to find four vessels on fire, all berthed alongside each other. Some were believed to be tugboats.
One of the vessels was fully engulfed in flames and eventually sank.
The man was rescued from the blaze with burn injuries and taken to the Singapore General Hospital.
It took the officers 90 minutes to get the blaze under control, an SCDF spokesman told The Straits Times. Four fire engines, two Red Rhinos, six supporting vehicles, two ambulances and two marine fire vessels were deployed.
The SCDF used eight hand-held water jets from the fire engines and two foam monitors from one of the marine fire vessels.
It is not known how many people were on the vessels that caught fire, or the cause of the blaze.
The SCDF was still conducting secondary rescue operations at press time.
Man injured in shipyard blaze in critical condition
Leong Wai Kit Channel NewsAsia 27 Mar 13;
SINGAPORE: A man injured in a blaze at a shipyard in Jurong is in critical condition, with 38 per cent burns to his body.
Singapore General Hospital (SGH) says the man was admitted to its burns unit early Wednesday morning.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said the fire broke out at Tanoto Shipyard at around 9.15pm on Tuesday.
Four vessels, berthed alongside one another, were on fire.
One of the vessels was fully engulfed in flames and sank.
- CNA/ir
Tugboat blaze: Three still missing
Jalelah Abu Baker Straits Times 28 Mar 13;
THREE men were still missing in the waters off Jurong yesterday, after a blaze destroyed four tugboats the previous night.
Rescuers in three craft fanned out to look for the three foreigners, who are believed to have been on the tugboats at Tanoto Shipyard in Jurong.
They are from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, which is coordinating the search and rescue mission, and the Police Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, the tugboats lie in ruin.
Surveying the scene from a boat off the shoreline yesterday, The Straits Times saw the charred remains of part of three vessels, as the rest had sunk under water.
The fourth tugboat vanished under water on Tuesday night, soon after the fire broke out at about 9pm.
Firefighters took around seven hours to put out the inferno, whose cause is not known. It had started on one tug boat and spread swiftly to the other three which were also in the ship repair yard in Jalan Samulun.
Four foreign crew members were injured in the fire, two of whom are in critical condition at Singapore General Hospital (SGH). One suffered 30 per cent burns to his body and the other, 40 per cent burns to the body, said an SGH spokesman. Both are unconscious and on ventilator support.
Of the other two, one has burns and the other, a suspected fractured finger and cuts. They were warded at the National University Hospital.
Three of the injured crewmen were in a vessel that was passing near the fire.
They were ferried by a Police Coast Guard craft to the Police Coast Guard Gul Base nearby, and then taken to hospital by the Singapore Civil Defence Force.
The National Environment Agency, whose officers were checking for pollution in the area yesterday, said that except for isolated patches of light oil sheen, the waters were clear. Tanoto Shipyard had cleared the oil.
Driver Rajaraman Suresh, who works at a nearby shipyard, said he heard an explosion at about 8.40pm on Tuesday.
"It was scary. The ground shook and we were all told to leave. I could see thick, black smoke, and there was a strong burning smell," the 30-year-old said.
Additional reporting by Eugene Chua
