Burn off Hungjao Road French and Settlement' firemen toiled for hours early yesterday morning to extinguish a fire which swept'through a large refugee camp composed of straw dwellings south of Hungjao Road, about a quarter of a mile east of Columbia Road. More then 1,000 Chinese were rendered homeless and lost a large' proportion of their personal belongings.
The flames practically razed twenty-three large matsheds each of which contained eight family dwellings. Men, women and children had to flee for their lives and many were unable to save any of their property.
The Settlement Fire Brigade was called at 3.35 am., and it was not until three-quarters of an hour later that the flames were reported under control. The Settlement firemen spent altogether two hours at the scene, No casualties were reported.
Residents of the upper end Avenue Joffre were aw de yesterday morning by the Staccato reports like the of rifle shots were heard and many people thought some sort of mi engagement was in progress, but it ascertained later that the sou came from bamboos cracking the heat of the fire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.