SANDAKAN: A cooking mishap left 8,000-9,000 Kampung Bahagia residents in Batu Sapi without homes after fire swept through the village early Sunday.
The 1.30am blaze was traced to a house at Jambatan A, where a resident was unable to extinguish flames that had erupted from a gas stove while cooking.
No deaths were recorded, said Sandakan District Police Chief ACP George Abd Rakman.
Three temporary relief centres have since been opened to shelter fire victims - the Dewan Serbaguna PPR Batu Sapi, Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Gas and SK Bahagia.
Sandakan Fire and Rescue Station chief Jimmy Lagung said the blaze engulfed an area of more than four hectares, with low tide conditions hampering efforts to secure an adequate open water source for firefighting operations.
“Besides seawater, firefighting operations utilised water from tanker and pressurised hydrant belonging to a factory. Four hose lines stretching 1,000 feet and 12 water jets were used to extinguish the fire.
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“A Fire Rescue Tender (FRT) from the Kinabatangan station also assisted in the operation, deploying two hose lines measuring 400 feet with four water jets,” he said in a statement.
Village headman Sharif Hashim Sharif Iting said hundreds of nearby residents rushed to fight the fire while waiting for the fire brigade to arrive, but their efforts proved futile.
“The situation was made worse by the closeness of the wooden-structured houses, lack of water supply, and strong wind,” he told reporters at the scene.
He added that the chaotic conditions, with thousands of residents scrambling to flee, left most families with no time to salvage their belongings.
Sharif described the incident as the worst fire ever recorded in Kampung Bahagia, surpassing two previous blazes in the village’s history.
“This is the third fire. The first was in 1999 and the second in 2001, but neither came close to the scale of destruction we are seeing now,” he said.
Sharif called on the authorities to conduct victim registration directly at the fire site to ease the process for displaced families.
“As of today, most victims are still at the location as they have nowhere to go. I understand that the Dewan Serbaguna Batu Sapi, which is expected to be opened as a relief centre, will not be sufficient to accommodate everyone.”
He urged the authorities to identify additional temporary shelters, particularly for families with young children and the elderly.
Meanwhile, Sandakan Municipal Council president Datuk Walter Kenson said another relief centre (PPS) was opened at Sekolah Kebangsaan Gas here at 11 am, after the first centre at the Batu Sapi People’s Housing Project (PPR) Hall was opened at 7 am.
He said the centre was opened after inspections found the affected residential areas unsafe for occupation, and a disaster declaration for the Sandakan district had been issued by the council.
