An Asian housemaid, who was working in a Saudi household in Riyadh, was seriously injured in cylinder blast accident.

Sri Lankan housemaid, Fathima Safaya, 38 years old, was injured during the early hours of the morning when she lit the gas cooker to begin her morning work. According to sources, there was a gas leak in the kitchen and the whole place caught fire when she lit the burner.

Eyewitnesses said Safaya was brought to King Saud Hospital (Semesi), suffering from serious burns in most parts of her body.

Safaya, who hails from Dharga town in Alutgama, some 50 km from Colombo, is a divorcee with two sons. Safaya, who had come to the Kingdom to provide for her sons, has been working in the household for the past 15 months.

Confirming the incident, a Sri Lankan embassy official said the mission is looking after the interests of the blast victim, and the police are investigating the accident to ascertain the cause of the tragedy.

The brother of Safaya, Rajah, who had come from Jeddah to be by his sister, told Arab News that his sister was a kind, humble and helpful person.

“She is lying in a state of coma, I cannot speak to her,” Rajah said, adding that her body is fully burned and her face is fully bandaged.

He also said that his sister had no complaints against her sponsor.

“She told me that the house had less work and there were two more maids in the house from Indonesia and the Philippines, adding that the work is distributed among them,” he said.

An embassy official said that such incidents are very rare in the Kingdom.

“Its very unfortunate that this woman had to suffer this experience,” he said, adding that the doctors at the government hospital are striving to save her life.