SINGAPORE - For over two hours on Monday night, about a hundred people watched a crime drama unfold as riot police confronted a man who threatened to kill his landlady.

The 51-year-old man had quarrelled with his landlady, wildly waving a kitchen knife at her, according to Chinese evening paper Shin Min Daily News.

The landlady is believed to have locked herself in a room, with the man outside, and called police at about 7pm. She lived in a seventh-floor unit at Blk 5 Saint George's Lane.

Residents started gathering at the opposite block, Blk 8, when Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers inflated a life bag at the bottom of Blk 5.

Some officers entered units directly above and below the landlady's flat - on the sixth, eighth and ninth floors.

At about 9.15pm, when the man's emotions seemed to still be unstable, the officers then abseiled down from the ninth-floor unit to the one on the seventh floor.

At around the same time, riot police broke in from the front door, and the man was arrested.

A resident told Shin Min that similar incidents had occurred three to four times in the one year since the man lived in that unit, with police and SCDF officers arriving each time.

Police have classified the latest incident as a case of criminal intimidation. Investigations are ongoing.