MALAYSIA: PUBLIC ADVISED TO KEEP FIRE EXTINGUISHER IN CAR

IPOH (Malaysia), Sept 18 (Bernama) -- People driving back to their hometowns
and villages are advised keep a mini fire extinguisher in their vehicles as a
precaution.

Housing and Local Government Minister Kong Cho Ha said the
precaution was necessary to ensure early action in case of small fires.

"Besides making sure the car is well maintained, take all steps to ensure
the house is safe, stop if you are sleepy...and I also encourage keeping a small
fire extinguisher in the car," he told reporters after a briefing by the Perak
Fire and Rescue Services Department in conjunction with 'Festive Operation (Ops
Raya)' here Friday.

Earlier, he and the director-general of the Malaysian Fire and Rescue
Services Department, Hamzah Abu Bakar, together with reporters from Kuala
Lumpur took an observation flight from Subang in Selangor to Perak.

He said the traffic situation on the North-South Highway was expected to
worsen later Friday evening till Saturday night when more people returned to
hometowns and villages.


"During the observation, we saw that traffic was smooth but if we look at
the ratio, the number of vehicles heading north was five times more than those
going south. This ratio will be higher later in the evening," he said.

Kong said from Sept 13 till 5am Friday morning, the department received 231
rescue calls and most of them involved road accidents and there were five
deaths.

He said there were 330 fire calls and three deaths were registered. There
were 84 special operations calls that involved 12 deaths.

Meanwhile, he said 9,600 department personnel out of 13,000 had their leave
frozen and will be on duty throughout the festive month not only at "emergency
response" locations but at fire stations nationwide.

--BERNAMA