(Translated staff post from the KHIT THIT MEDIA on 01 May 2025.)
Widespread daily blackouts are causing dreadful incidents
in hot and humid Yangon City formerly known as Rangoon. People are forced to
sleep without their air conditioners running full on at night. But many
families who can afford to buy a small electric generator and spend very
expensive petrol fuel are still sleeping with thire airconditioners running blowing
full on.
Unfortunately, some ignorant Myanmar people do not
really know that the petrol engine’s exhaust gas are full of carbon monoxide
(CO). The result of inhaling CO inside an enclosed apartment is surely lethal
and so many families are now dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in Yangon City.
Following is the recent stories of two families sadly killed by Carbon monoxide for they ran petrol electric generator in their small apartment so that, they foolishly thought, they would comfortably sleep with aircon on.
SanChaung Family of four
Killed by Carbon monoxide Poisoning
The family had
been dead for nearly a week inside their apartment and finally the neighbors
smelt the putric smell of rotting corpses and called the
police and army on May-1. The address is Unit-A on the fourth floor of No-44 at
Shwe-Long Street in Sanchaung Township.
The police broke down the door and sadly found the
whole family and their dog dead inside. The deads are Ko Kaung (father-30), Moe
Sandar (mother-25), Kaung Thet Paing (son-8), and Win Sandar (sister-16).
Apparently, they were running a small petrol
generator on the back varendar which was enclosed and the exhaust fume were
trapped inside the appartmen and killed the whole family in their deep sleep
during the night.
In Rangoon the military government is rationing
electricity strictly and most households get only four hours of power every day
if they are lucky as some poor areas get no electricity and they must buy
expensive water from the private suppliers with water bowsers.
This time out of family of five only middle-aged
father and young son died while the rest, the
mother and her sister and teenage daughter, were timely resued and the
ambulances took them to the nearest hospital.
Since their room was on the ground floor, they were
forced to keep the generator inside otherwise it would be stolen in the lawless
Rangoon. People can’t even leave their slippers outside because there are too
many desparate people going around looking for anything sellable.
Their windowless, 300 US$/month, small appartment
is only 15ft wide and 50ft deep and the front door and the back door are to
shut at night even while the generator is running full on to keep the aircon
on.
First few nights they started feeling noxious and
dizzy, so they took some pills without realizing that they had been poisoned by
carbon monoxide. Only that night because of soaring Rangoon temperature they
ran the generator inside the whole night and by morning the father and son were
found dead. Their bodies were the color of red-cherries as in a typical carbon monoxide
poisoning victim.
