Lessons That Were Never Learned

The late 1980s especially the year 1988 were periods full of anxieties. I was still in college struggling to understand what were the lecturers mumbling about and Malaysia was in the grim of troubled UMNO trying to stay intact with Team A and Team B streaking at each other’s throat. The economy was trying to recover from a bad slump and there were a lot of university graduates found themselves involved in government created packages in order to get them employed doing jobs with a clerk’s salary.

Malaysia was considered better than other developing countries because we have rich natural resources and plenty of human assets. Petronas had been pumping oil and gas off Sarawak, Sabah and Terengganu coasts. Tin, rubber and oil palm were major contributors to buffer our economy from further slumps. With Tun Razak’s legacy of investing a lot into human capital by sending hundreds of thousands of potential Malaysians to get educated in UK and USA, along with the continuous effort by the local universities, Malaysia was able to steer away from the path rendered by other developing nations where chaos and civil wars were meals of the day.

Whilst good things were supposed to shower this developing nation, the people in the corridors of power were behaving as if the country’s good fortunes were their grand fathers’ heritage for the takings. Mahathir’s war cry “bersih, cekap dan amanah’’ was just a cosmetic do to cover a cronyism and nepotism infected governance.

Our nation was just being shocked and awed with historic government manoeuvres where the judiciary system were raped in limbo and the Malay sultans were striped naked of their immunity. Tun Salleh Abas with a few other good judges were sacked because they did their jobs and UMNO got disbanded. By using the Agong and the Royal Commission, PM Mahathir manage to ouster the judges who did not follow his whims and later after consolidating his power in UMNO(Baru) i.e Mahathir’s UMNO, he went after the Malay Royals to strip the Sultans of their immunity and set up special court to humiliate the Sultans if they braved themselves to go against Mahathir’s wishes. From then on, with the Malay Royals were kept holed in their palaces and the judiciary was like “lembu dicucuk hidung”. The UMNO elites then had free hands to plunder the country’s coffer.

Then after nearly 5 years, the country was shocked again with the Highland Towers disaster. 48 lives were lost including a few VIPs. The Ulu Kelang hilly areas once regarded as pristine and prestigious areas for having a home were then became a dangerous zone to live. How could a building which had been there for years suddenly collapsed like a tree log with roots corrupted by white ants? A commission consist of experts from IKRAM and university professors, was set up to investigate cause of the disaster and to make recommendations to prevent similar incidents to happen again.

True enough the hilly areas were found to be unstable and there were underground streams that weakened the piling structure. There were a lot of developments going on the slopes of Ulu Kelang hills that contributed to the instability of the areas. The geological findings showed that the Ulu Kelang areas were of clayey soils covering layers of lime stones. This natural mixture by itself is very solid and has been in existence for thousand of years. However once it was disturbed by land developments and building of housing estates and sky scrappers, the equilibrium existence of the natural soil was forever disturbed and naturally the earth mother will start to find ways to attain equilibrium state again. Hence, earth movement would happen and this was manifested in the collapse of one of the Highland Towers.

The commission recommendations were to stop all on going hill slopes projects and future hill slopes development were to be banned all together. The ministers with all the government bodies were seen to agree to these and we were assured that similar incidents shall not happen again.

Being an idealist in nature conservation, I was happy that at last the government was paying attention to the natural environment. The Ulu Kelang areas were already in bad environmental state and with the wake of High Towers disaster, more attention should be given to preserve the jungles and hills of Ulu Kelang. The mistakes that have been made could be corrected then.

Alas, those were to become only wishful thinking. When the dust settled and the politicians had gone back to their nice offices and expanding waistlines, the activities in the slopes started again and this time with more vigour and ‘gelojoh’ haste. Driving along Jalan Ulu Kelang was a dismal experience to me when every time I set my eyes on those bulldozers and dump trucks stripping the hills of naked to make way for more hill slope developments. I was sure then that the tragedy of Highland Towers would certainly repeat itself. True to my expectation, a few years later more tragedies happened and many lives were lost again. Taman Hill View slope slipped and destroyed the bungalow of Tan Sri Ismail and claimed the lives of six of his family. And there were a few more collapses other than this.

And the most recent tragedy was the Bukit Antarabangsa collapse where 14 bungalows were devastated and so far 4 lives were lost and many injured. As this posting was written, a Sri Lankan person is still missing and all efforts are being put to search for that person. Hopes are diminishing to find that person alive.

Every time such a disaster happened, we questioned ourselves why should it happen again. When we had experts telling us that all development in the slope are dangerous and we even had by-laws describing what not to be done on hill slopes and any projects on a hill of 25 degree slopes 0r more, should not be permitted. However, even with all the rules and regulations set up, we still see housing projects being energetically carried out and continued without checks.

Greed. Human greed is the cause of all these untoward incidents. After the first major collapse of the High Land Towers, the government were seemed to be committed to prevent further tragedies. A set of rules and regulations were put into place and promises of changing the way potentially risky projects on hilly areas were to be monitored. These were heard coming from relevant bodies, either JKR, Planning Units or Ministry of Housing and Local Government. But sadly, as usual, it was only lip service either to gain popularity or to secure votes. Human greed overcame all the promises. The rules and regulations were implemented as “melepaskan batuk di tangga” and many more hill slopes projects were granted permits, to the dismay of local inhabitants and environmentalists.

Properties on highlands overlooking a valley are always in good demand. The areas have good view of the city in the valley and the night view is especially awesome. The climate is cooler with plentiful nice breeze. Properties in these areas normally reap good profits and hence developers compete to get hold of such lands and build properties to be sold at sky price. People with money love to have homes at high prestigious places so that they can look down and savour the view of the valley days and nights. They are not fully aware that the awesome view could carry gruesome consequences, especially when the development are implemented without sufficient design and steps to withstand the tremendous earth wanting to get back to state of equilibrium, i.e when the earth has been disturbed with development projects.

With the developers rush to make money and the contractors prone to cut corners (to maximise profits) works quality are affected. There is always a love–hate relation between time and quality. If you want it fast, you may get a half cooked product. But if you want quality, the time to produce may take longer and your profitability would be greatly affected. Businessmen first priority is normally to make profit , hence quality sit in second or third place after money and leisure.

Adapting this line of thinking, the work quality in the hill slopes may not have been properly done. Hence, when there is a heavy downpour, the terraced slopes will little by little be affected and when the time is right a landslide is inevitable. That was what probably happened in the latest landslide tragedy in Ulu Kelang.

Proper attention to tackle design of earthwork and slope cutting may be lacking. Sensitive areas such as the slopes would need special attention to provide water run-off, under ground drainage, piling and foundations. Our engineers should have given more attention to slope management and prevention of ground slippage. This way landslide could be avoided. Or could it?

The society should be educated that living on high ground us not necessarily good. House buyers should given ample warning on the risks of living on hill slopes and highlands. Demands for high landed properties may not be as high if people are warned sufficiently to dangers of living on the high grounds.

Local governments who give out the permits to developers must be monitored. There should be a local committee consists of experts, JKR, Local Council and relevant NGOs (like consumers association) to oversee and monitor the permitting board, so that unscrupulous politicians and businessmen cannot get away with quick development to gain quick money.

Until and unless we take special heed to this recent tragedy and really learned the hard lessons, there will be similar incidents to happen again. As there are so many slopes development that have been carried since Highland Towers in 1988, we have great concern. Don't be shocked, if another landslides occur again in the near future.

Our PM, TPM and echoes from all other politicians, call to stop all hill slopes projects immediately, should be applauded. The ongoing projects currently should be audited by IKRAM to ensure that the projects follow the existing rules and guidelines. Any projects that fail to comply must be stopped and the developer be apprehended and punished.

Lastly, we call the government and politicians should start looking after the well being of the house buyers and consumers rather then the well being the “taukeh”s and their own pockets. We do not want a similar tragedy to occur again because “a wise man shall not let himself to be bitten by the same snake from the same hole”. That is of course if we are wise enough to learn the lessons from the recent tragedy.