VISIT WITH A MISSION¡KTeo (right) with his aides at the site of the fire incident. BINTULU- The Bintulu Member of Parliament, Dato' Seri Tiong King Sing has urged the authority concerned to ensure that contractor appointed to develop the new premise for SMK Baru here will expedite their works. In a statement released here on Monday, Tiong hoped the authority concerned would be able to justify the urgency of the works after the existing site for the school at Kampung Batru here burnt down last Sunday morning. "I learnt that the construction of a new premise for the school has commenced and due to be completed by the end of the year, but now the needs has appeared to be urgent and the Education Ministry or the authority concerned have to expedite the development process," he added. Two blocks of buildings occupied by SMK Baru on sharing basis with SK Kampung Baru were totally destroyed within an hour after the fire incident, which was reported to have started about 3.15am Sunday. The fire was said to have triggered from the middle section of one of the wooden blocks affected before spreading widly and reached its heights about an hour later. Two teams of fire fighters were strengthened by the deployment of their off-duty personnel to contend with the situation and successfully avoiding the fire from spreading to other buildings close by. Teachers residing at barracks built nearby the burning blocks managed to bring out their families and belongings as precautionary steps amid the firefighters' successful strategy to keep the fire from spreading. The principal of SMK Baru, Encik Mohd Kassim Bin Awang had revealed that the incident was the second and the worst to have affected the school after a first incident in 1999 which razed down a classroom block. According to him, 230 of the over over 800 students under his charge would be sitting for their Penilaian Menengah Rendah examination for this year. Meanwhile, SK Kampung Baru headmaster, Haji Bolhassan Haji Manis had revealed that about 970 primary school students were studying there at present from the pre-school level up to Primary Six. Expressing his sadness over the occurrence of the incident, Tiong said the ministry through its Divisional and District Education Offices would have to work out a contingency plan to temporarily relocate the affected students. Within his capacity, a team from the Bintulu Member of Parliament's People Service Centre led by Encik Teo Ho Ping, who is also Tiong's special assistant, was also deployed to the site of the incident on Monday to assess the situation. Teo had also been instructed to liaise with the Divisional and District Education Offices to work out alternatives that could be implemented to ensure that the education of the affected students would not be affected. At the same time, the Member of Parliament also urged schools especially those operating in wooden blocks to take precautionary measures and to adjudge fire safety and prevention trainings seriously to avoid re-occurrence of any undesired incident. He also warned teachers, especially those who smoke, not to show their habits that could be picked up by the students as apart from causing hazards to their health, such habit had also been found to be one of the causes of fire breakout.