NAJRAN/YANBU, 20 January 2008 — A 54-year-old Yemeni worker died presumably of smoke inhalation after he burned charcoal to heat up his home in the southern city of Najran, which is reeling under the cold spell that is currently gripping the Kingdom, local authorities reported yesterday.
According to Col. Ibrahim Muhmmad Al-Harith, spokesperson for the Najran police, the sponsor of the Yemeni man grew concerned when he didn’t show up to work at a restaurant in the city’s Al-Hasiniya Center.
The Saudi employer called the police when the Yemeni didn’t answer the door to his flat. Inside, they found the man dead near a stove that contained evidence that he had burned charcoal to keep warm.
Also yesterday, a 14-year-old girl living in Al-Eis village near Yanbu died as a result of cold weather. The girl was suffering from meningitis and the severe cold weather exacerbated her condition.
Parents took the girl first to the public hospital in the village but doctors advised them to take her to King Fahd Hospital in Madinah for advanced treatment. The girl’s family has been living in a shack.
Abdullah Al-Mailabi, director of the Charitable Warehouse in Al-Eis, emphasized the need for supporting the more than 21,000 poor people in the area to help them confront the harsh weather. Mailabi’s charity provides relief aid to 3,000 families in the area.
Meanwhile, sources at the local Habona and Yadma hospitals reported a total of 23 severe cases of smoke inhalation, involving mostly women and children, since Wednesday. All the accidents resulted from burning charcoal to heat up enclosed areas.
Lt. Abdullah Saleh Al-Ghamdi, a spokesman for the Civil Defense in Najran, said charcoal burning was an extremely dangerous method of home heating. He called for awareness programs to enlighten the public of the dangers of charcoal burning as a protection against cold.
Burning charcoal in enclosed areas is dangerous because the fires convert oxygen to carbon monoxide, an odorless gas whose molecules bond with hemoglobin and prevents the delivery of oxygen to cells. People who succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning die from a pathological condition called hypoxia. Those who are injured but don’t die from hypoxia often end up mentally handicapped in some way because of the damage caused by depriving the brain of oxygen for a period of time.
At least 15 people, including Saudi students and expatriate workers, died in various parts of the Kingdom during the past week as a result of cold weather.
