SINGAPORE in the 80s: would you believe that a building can collapse to debris in one minute with 50 people buried under it?
12:20 am Saturday, March 15, 1986. Industrial & Commercial Bank office on the ground floor of The Lian Yak building
A young woman at her table with the pile of invoices and cheques had a glance at her watch thinking that in 10 minutes she can grab her handbag and finally leave the office to meet with her friends for a lunch
12:25 am Saturday, March 15, 1986. Industrial & Commercial Bank office on the ground floor of The Lian Yak building
Loud crumbling sounds below in the basement and a shaky floor
12:32 am Saturday, March 15, 1986. The debris of The Lian Yak building / New World Hotel
Full darkness. The girl’s mouth and nose are full of concrete dust. The girl is alive and not in pain laying with her legs bent in an enclave under a wall fracture. She is thinking about how mad her boss will be on Monday when he is not able to enter the office
17:48 pm Sunday, March 16, 1986
Two Singapore Civil Defence officers managed to get through the tunnel in the debris, the girl is saved without a scratch being the luckiest survivor of the collapse.
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The New World Hotel (at The Lian Yak building) collapse on March 15th, 1986, came as a complete shock to Singapore. In one minute, the building turned into debris in the late Saturday morning
1986 was only the 21st year of Singapore’s sovereignty and just a year after the first national recession and the growth slowdown. I don’t know if the nation’s morale was low, but the unemployment rate was higher than in previous years and for the first time Singapore was behind the other developed economies which raised some questions about the state policies in social and fiscal areas. In many ways, the disastrous event has catalysed the Singaporean Nation’s further actualization empowering the common understanding of what Singapore is standing for.
The rescue and fire services teams arrived less than 30 mins after the collapse, and I guess for a short while they were in complete shock at what had happened and what they needed to do to save the survivors. The situation was unprecedented and quite around the clock given people under the wreckage could not last long in +30C without water. The challenge had to be addressed by a lot of manual and crane power, smart engineering solutions to create saving tunnels without causing further rubbles and personal rescuers’ courage to get inside these tunnels.
Already as of 1 pm, the rescuers began to remove the upper rubble and move the big blocks with cranes.
The dust was still in the air, the commands through loudspeakers over shouted each other, and the civil defence had sealed the perimeters of the area as hundreds of the citizens came to the scene despite very hot weather. Some just wondered what is going on, but many had started to contribute to the rescue operation.
The Command Centre was situated on the opposite side of the street at the Eagle Piano company shop and the group of engineers and civil defence officers were looking at the building plan placed on top of a black piano. Within hours they had to work out how to drill the tunnels without resonating vibration and how to look for the people who are still alive but might be unconscious.
6:40 pm Saturday, March 15, 1986
The first survivor is rescued and air-transported to the hospital.
The relatives of the trapped victims were waiting for the news in a nearby coffee shop. I would imagine they later didn’t remember clearly but it was the day when they were addressed by several members of the Cabinet and Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The Prime minister arrived at the site 5 hours after the collapse.
Again, my guess but important part of Mr Lee’s agenda was to enable the Command Centre with the resources and expertise needed to mitigate the risk of сcollapsing tunnels to the victims. The support came from the tunnelling expert teams from UK, Ireland and Japan who were engaged in Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) construction works.
Midnight, Saturday, March 15, 1986
9 more people were rescued and transported to the hospital and one body was extracted from the rubble. The debris removal continued through the night.
Sunday, 16 March 1986
Aqua-Jet cutting tools arrived and careful engineering work to build tunnels inside the wreckage had started. The rescue tasks were done by Civil Defence, Army, and Police offices as well as an international team of tunnel engineers and given the hazard — inside jobs were done by volunteers. Victims were searched through walls with infra-red detectors.
The toll at the end of the second day was 11 rescued and seven dead. Many of the survivors had been in pain for hours with fractures and other injuries.
Monday-Tuesday 17–18 March 1986
Six more people were found and brought out from the rubble, bringing the total number rescued to 17. The last known survivor spent 83 long hours under the wreckage before the rescue. The death toll on the fourth day after the collapse reached 11.
Wednesday-Friday 19–21 March 1986
By noon on Wednesday after 96 hours of intensive work the people rescue was called off. Subsequently, the teams focused on heavy clean-up jobs. The last 12 bodies were discovered making the final death toll to 33 people. Amongst the victims, 23 were Singaporeans, and the other ten were foreigners. In a week the site was sealed off and Serangoon Road was open for the traffic.
The special commission had started an investigation into the root causes of the tragedy. The thorough expert examination concluded that the collapse happened due to a structural mistake in a building construction plan topped up by unreasonable cost optimizations on the quality of construction materials and the overload by the installation of the water tank and heaters on the rooftop which in totality made the tragedy fatal. Moreover, some walls cracking had started 2–3 days before the collapse though it had been neglected by the building management. The building owner responsible for the construction and management was buried under the wreckage.
What is striking me in this story is the state’s clear priority to save as many lives as possible and the personal heroism of the rescue operation participants.
Overall, the incident was perceived as an extended family tragedy and Singaporeans were deeply moved and donated $$1.5M to the Relief Fund to assist the victim’s families including non-Singaporeans. All children of the victims were included in the state annuity scheme.
As a preventive measure for the future, all buildings built in the 1970s in Singapore were thoroughly checked for structural faults which resulted in the demolition of two buildings with the issues. And in general, the planning and construction procedures in the fast-growing city have been tightened as well as the standards for buildings maintenance.
Such traumatic incidents create never healing wounds on the hearts, brains and souls of all people touched by them. In my research, I managed to find only four testimonials of the survivors, their relatives, and the rescuers while the rest seemed to be never ready to share what they have seen and gone through.
Singapore nation has proven to be brave and resilient in facing the unforeseeable crisis and capable of a united and inclusive response. This was and is a remarkable “all as one” nation act.
Singapore, 2022
