Four Indian migrant workers have been praised in Singapore for saving children and adults from a fire in a shophouse. These brave men—Inderjit Singh, Subramanian Saranraj, Nagarajan Anbarasan, and Sivasami Vijayaraj—were honoured by the Ministry of Manpower’s ACE Group with Friends of ACE coins for their quick actions. The fire broke out on April 8 and trapped 16 children and six adults inside the building.
One of the children rescued was Mark Shankar Pawanovich, the 8-year-old son of Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan. He was at a cooking school called Tomato Cooking School, which is located inside the building. Sadly, a 10-year-old Australian girl who was rescued later died at the hospital.
The workers acted quickly when they saw smoke and heard children screaming from the third floor. Without any safety gear, they grabbed a scaffold and ladder from their nearby worksite and rushed to help. With help from other workers in the area, they formed a human chain and carried the children one by one from a narrow ledge outside the burning building to safety.
Staff from the school helped place the children on the ledge so the workers could reach them. The men risked their lives, choosing not to use safety harnesses so they could save the children faster. Before the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) arrived, they had already rescued 10 children in just 10 minutes.
One of the rescuers, Subramanian Saranraj, 34, from Tamil Nadu, said he would never forget the blackened faces of the children and their loud cries for help. He had just dropped off some workers for renovation work and saw the burning building as he was leaving. He jumped out of his lorry when he saw the fire and the people crying for help.
“We also have children. If they were ours, we wouldn’t just watch,” said Saranraj. His colleague, Nagarajan Anbarasan, 37, agreed and said they couldn’t bear to see the children in pain. Because of the thick smoke, they didn’t try to go inside the building. Instead, they went straight to the windows to pull the children out.
Why did the workers not ascend the stairs to rescue the children?
They did not go up the stairs because the smoke inside the building was too thick, and they had no safety gear. They weren’t sure where the stairs were, so they chose to help from outside using the scaffold and ladder.
In total, 22 people were hurt, including 16 children between the ages of six and ten. Six adults, aged 23 to 55, were also affected. According to the SCDF, the fire started on the second floor where storage items were kept. Investigators also found that the building had several fire safety problems, such as illegal partitions.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said that only the first floor was allowed to be used as a children’s centre. The upper floors were meant for homes. The fire happened at Newtonshow Camp, which includes brands like Tomato Cooking School, Drama Llama, and Maker.