Around 240 families in a high rise tower in Sharjah are suffering without basic amenities for the past five days after a fire damaged the transformer in the building.
Residents complained that power, water and gas supplies to the 24-storey Al Ittihad Tower in Al Qasimiya area are cut after the fire that erupted in the transformer switchboard room on Thursday. Each floor of the tower has 10 flats, occupied by families of various nationalities. Many families have moved to hotels or relatives’ houses as they found it impossible to stay in the building in the scorching heat, especially in the fasting month. The occupants include children, elderly people and special needs people, who found it very difficult to evacuate the building when the fire broke out.
Firefighters reached the building and doused the fire on Thursday after they received a call from the tenants. Since then, the power has been disconnected. Some residents said they moved to hotels hoping that the services would be restored soon. But they are disappointed and lost hope in returning to their flats, as the landlord hadn’t given any promises about solving the issue. “The building manager didn’t even show up or take any step to restore the services,” a resident said.
However, in a letter circulated among the tenants, the building’s management apologised to them for what had happened and promised to solve the issue in a short time.
“The only thing the management has done is that they provided a generator to run the elevator, that too only for a few hours a day,” residents complained.
Many residents moved to hotels in Sharjah and Dubai and some others got help from their relatives. However, a few tenants who cannot afford to pay for hotels or don’t have relatives here shared money to rent generators. “But we can’t run it throughout. We need fuel to run it,” said a tenant. Those who managed to move to hotels are also suffering as it is very difficult to afford the expenditure of hotel rent and food.
The tenants said the landlord should give compensation to them to pay for the hotels, as they paid the rents in full till the end of the year.
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