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Fire at Robinson Road building kills one

UPDATED

A fire at a Robinson road building kills one person. (Yahoo! photo)
A fire at a Robinson road building kills one person. (Yahoo! photo)

A fire that broke out at the sixth floor of the Afro Asia Building at Robinson Road on Wednesday morning has killed one person.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force found the unidentified body, believed to be that of a woman, after the fire was put out. There were no injuries reported otherwise.

The SCDF said it was alerted to the fire at the seven-storey building at 63 Robinson Road at 10 am. Some 20 fire fighters were deployed to the affected unit to combat the fire.

The fire was confined t0 a unit measuring about 30 by 20 metres and did not spread to adjacent units, said SCDF. Officers took half an hour to control the fire and another half an hour to extinguish it.

Several vehicles were sent to the scene, including fire engines, four Red Rhinos, an ambulance and four support vehicles. Jet sprays were used outside the building to prevent the fire from spreading.

Occupants, who just went through a fire drill last week, evacuated on their own prior to SCDF's arrival.

The fire is believed to have started at the office of a law firm, B. Rengarajoo & Associates, run by a husband and wife team.

Those whom Yahoo! Singapore spoke to said the couple have been working at the building for some 20 years.

Insurance agent Joyce Ng, 52, who works on the fifth floor, described the man, Rengarajoo, as friendly and helpful.

Other building occupants said they started noticing the smell of gas at about 9:30am and saw smoke on the sixth floor 20 minutes later. Building security evacuated the occupants and the process was cool and calm, they said.

This is the first time the building, one of the oldest in the area, caught fire, they said.

The cause of fire and the death is under investigation.

For further enquiries on the matter, the public may call the police hotline at 1800-5471818.

- Additional reporting by Liyana Low