Although the fire that tore through a floating village in Sandakan, Sabah, has been attributed to a gas stove, it has nonetheless sparked a “troubling feeling” in Malaysian Advancement Party (MAP) chairperson P Waytha Moorthy.

While he declined to speculate without evidence, he said the scale and impact of the disaster, which destroyed about 1,000 homes and displaced thousands, inevitably raised questions about whether “something might be amiss”.

According to Waytha, this concern is rooted in...