Singapore Tragedies

Singapore has been fortunate, because of its geological makeup and geographical location, to have been spared from typhoons, earthquakes and other natural disasters which strike many of our neighbours. Singapore, however, is not immune from deadly disasters and tragedies.

CABLE CAR TRAGEDY (1983)

On 29 January 1983, a fatal accident involving Singapore’s cable car system (plying between Mount Faber and Sentosa Island), occurred at 6 p.m. when an oil rig ship, the Eniwetok, was being towed out of the Singapore harbour by a Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) tug. The Eniwetok had an oil derrick and other equipment installed on its decks.

As the ship made its way through the crowded waterway, the derrick became ensnared in the cable car lines that crossed the harbour from Singapore to Sentosa Island. Two of the cable cars were dislodged from the cable lines, sending them plummeting 55 metres into the waters below, killing seven passengers. 13 passengers, who were left stranded in their cable cars in the darkness of the night, were plucked, in a daring rescue raid, one by one, from four cable cars by the crewmen of two helicopters from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The rescue was directed by SAF Chief Of Staff Colonel Lee Hsien Loong (the current Prime Minister of Singapore). The 3.5-hour rescue operation the was completed more than ten hours after accident had happened.

After the tragedy, the cable car operation was shut down for seven months. A judicial inquiry into the disaster, commissioned by the Singapore government, concluded that the ship’s captain and harbour pilot were mainly to blame for the tragedy and recommended steps to minimise the likelihood of future accidents.

THE COLLAPSE OF HOTEL NEW WORLD (1986)

One of the worst disasters in post-war Singapore which took place on 15 March 1986 was the sudden collapse of Hotel New World. All six levels of the Lian Yak Building, popularly known as Hotel New World, collapsed without warning, in less than a minute. The building, located in Little India, was occupied by a bank, a hotel and a nightclub, all of which crumbled into rubble and twisted metal, burying 50 people inside. Singapore’s newly formed Civil Defence Force (SCDF) began rescue and recovery efforts immediately, and the operation continued for several days. Tunnelling experts from Britain, Ireland and Japan, who were stationed in Singapore for

the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) subway at the time, were called in to assist in the rescue. The progress of the rescue operations gathered steam with the arrival of specialised equipment such as aqua-jet cutting tools, life detector devices and infrared imagers provided by private companies and the SCDF. The rescuers unearthed 17 lucky survivors. When rescue operations finally ended, rescuers had managed to retrieve the bodies of 33 people who perished in the disaster.

Investigations found that poor structural design and substandard construction by of unskilled personnel were the main causes the building’s collapse. These conclusions led to reforms in Singapore’s construction industry with the government introducing stricter laws and building codes and the authorities conducting more regular and rigorous checks on buildings.

THE COLLAPSE OF NICOLL HIGHWAY (2004)

nicoll Highway was officially opened on 17 August 1956 to connect Kallang with the Central Business District (CBD). It was named after a former Governor of Singapore, Sir John Nicoll. It was 3:30 p.m. in the middle of the afternoon on 20 April 2004 when a construction-related disaster struck. Inadequate temporary works and design and construction errors led to the fatal collapse of Singapore’s deepest

underground tunnel. The collapse affected a 110 metre section of the tunnel being constructed for the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit’s new Circle Line, which lies adjacent to the six-lane Nicoll Highway.

Four workers died and three were injured when steel struts supporting diaphragm walls of the excavation snapped, causing the tunnel to cave in. Part of the highway was also destroyed. As Nicoll Highway sank, gas, water and electricity cables gave way, causing power to go out for 15,000 people and 700 businesses in the Marina and Suntec City areas of Singapore.

The police cordoned off Merdeka Bridge and closed all roads leading to Nicoll Highway, affecting thousands of commuters. Other routes into and out of the city had to be used with public transport services also diverted. The cost of damages arising from the disaster ran into millions of dollars and it was eight months later before Nicoll Highway returned to operation.