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We always think Singapore is safe. And it is. I can leave my house at 3am and take a stroll around my neighbourhood and reach home at 4am - cold and shivering and feeling stupid. But, safe. With this feeling of security, it is easy to forget that Singapore once suffered its own set of disasters. We just hope that Singaporeans today who never knew about them, don't take our safety for granted. Let's stay diligent and ensure these incidents never repeat again. For history's sake, here are 16 of most horrifying incidents in Singapore. They won't want to have this in Singapore's history books. But we feel there are important lessons here for future generations to learn. 1. Bukit Ho Swee Fire (25 May 1961)
This fire was Singapore's largest fire in history - taking away four lives, injuring 85 and rendering 16,000 people homeless after 2,200 attap houses were destroyed. Investigations began afterwards to pinpoint the cause of this mega fire. But yet up to today, no one has found the exact cause of this incident.
2. MacDonald House Bombing (10 March 1965)
This incident resurfaced in the news recently, after Indonesia insensitively renamed a corvette warship "Usman-Harun" - after the two commando bombers. We really don't know what prompted Indonesia to make such a decision, and the resulting furore needlessly strained bilateral ties between our countries. Singapore imposed a ban of this ship entering its ports and naval bases. But what was the incident that happened in the first place? Believe it or not, Singapore was victim to this bombing due to Indonesia's unhappiness with the merger of Singapore and Malaysia, which they openly opposed. This was a long time ago, in 1965. And to make their point, they sent two commandos to plant the bomb, which resulted in the death of two bank employees and over 33 injured parties. In total, 29 bombs were set off in Singapore but the MacDonald's bombing was by far the most serious. In the end, the two young Indonesia commandos, Harun Said (then 21) and Osman Mohamed Ali (then 23), were caught and hanged in 1968.
3. The Spyros Disaster (12 October 1978)
At about 2pm on this day, a Greek tanker "Spyros" exploded at the Jurong shipyard. It killed 76 people in the immediate vicinity and injured hundreds more, making it Singapore's worst accident in terms of lives lost. Many workers who were on their way back to the shipyard were burnt to death while others suffered serious burns and inhalation of toxic gases. This tragic incident led to an immediate increase of safety regulations at the shipyard. 4. The Murder of the Tan children (6 January 1979)
The Geylang Bahru murder case of the Tan children shook Singapore. It was one of the most brutal homicides in Singapore history. Their parents had left the house at 6:35am for work. The mother phoned home at 7:10am to remind the children to wake up for school to no avail. Upon arriving home at 10am, they found the four children, aged between 5 to 10, cruelly slashed to death and had their bodies piled up in the bathroom. Police ended up questioning over 100 of the Tan family's neighbours. But till today, no suspects were identified and no weapons were ever recovered. This has to be the most chilling murders ever, but the murderer did appear to have intimate knowledge of the family. 5. The Adrian Lim murders (January/ February 1981)
In 1981, police investigations into the murder of two young children, Agnes Ng Siew Heok and Ghazali bin Marzuki led to the capture of three murders: Adrian Lim, wife Catherine Tan Mui Choo and mistress Hoe Kah Hong. Adrian Lim practised rituals as a phoney religion medium, luring women into having sex with him in exchange for beauty or to ward off evil spirits. He manipulated them with lies and deceit and ill-practice, at one point electrocuting one of them. He was finally captured when he was found guilty of killing two children just to draw attention away from his impending rape charge. He lured the children to his home and the trio killed them slowly, drinking their blood and drowning them systematically. The trio tried to plead for insanity but were denied multiple times. They were hanged on 25 November 1988. 6. Cable Car Disaster (29 January 1983)
Many young Singaporeans may be unaware that our cable car system once suffered a disastrous accident, resulting in the death of 7 people. In 1983, a towed oil rig had broken loose from its tug boats and passed under the waterway, entangling the cables. This cause it to snap - resulting in two cabins plunging 55 metres (approx 18 stories) into the sea. If it is any consolation, the Singapore Air Force did manage to save the people trapped in the remaining four cabins, through an extremely risky helicopter rescue. They only carried out this risky operation as they believed the cabins could plunge into the sea at any time. The entire nation viewed a live telecast of the accident's aftermath and rescue.
tbc...
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Post time 28-3-2014 10:46 AM
变色卡
Author
nice info
Post time 29-3-2014 08:24 AM
