Compiled by FAZLEENA AZIZ, C. ARUNO and A. ARAVINTHAN
ONE of the heroes involved in the Highland Towers condominium tragedy rescue operation, senior assistant fire chief Mahandran Muniandy, has died of a heart attack, Harian Metro reported.
The deceased, who was on duty at the Selangor Fire and Rescue Department headquarters training division, died while receiving treatment at Hospital Taiping in Perak at about 7pm on Saturday.
Mahandran was one of the firemen involved in the rescue operation of the Highland Towers tragedy some 30 years ago.
In 2016, he had a reunion with the baby who survived the tragedy.
On Dec 11, 1993, one of the three Highland Towers blocks collapsed, killing 48 in the nation’s worst housing tragedy.
The earth had given way after 10 days of rainfall, which caused a landslide and toppled the block. Residents of the other two blocks were evacuated.
> Some travel agencies offering on the fly packages are irresponsible and is one of the reasons why pilgrims were unable to perform their umrah, Utusan Malaysia reported.
Malaysian Bumiputera Tourism Operators Association president Harun KC Ahmu said travel agencies were obligated to fulfil their promotion offers as their customers had paid for the services.
“There shouldn’t be issues related to flight tickets and hotel bookings. Every travel agency must be honest and trustworthy, even when selling a package, it must be based on what is available.
“If every travel agency follows the proper procedures in conducting transactions, problems will not arise. This will also lead to better services including for umrah packages,” he said.
Harun urged victims to come forward and report them to the authorities.
He also said travel agencies had the responsibility to refund money paid by affected customers.
● The above article is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.
