Collapse of Hotel New World

The collapse of Hotel New World was a civil disaster that occurred in Singapore on 15 March 1986. The Hotel New World was a six-story building situated at the junction of Serangoon Road and Owen Road in the Rochor district when it suddenly collapsed, trapping 50 people beneath the rubble. 33 people died and 17 people were rescued. and a branch of the Industrial & Commercial Bank (ICB) took up the ground level. A nightclub, Universal Neptune Nite-Club and Restaurant, was situated on the second level of the building at the time of the collapse.

The building had previously experienced a carbon monoxide gas leak in some of the hotel rooms on 29 August 1975, hospitalising 35 guests. Various witnesses, such as contractors and the night club's watchman, reported cracks in the building's walls between 1974 to 1983, though structural issues had not yet been observed. One day before the Lian Yak Building collapsed, a large crack appeared on a pillar at the nightclub and exposed the pillar's bricks. A mirror, installed on a column in the nightclub's dressing room, also spontaneously cracked, and the column's plywood panelling was bulging to the right. The building's owner, Ng Khong Lim, was informed of both instances, and ordered workers to prop up both columns; witnesses say that workers used timber planks as the props.

Collapse

At on 15 March 1986, the building rapidly collapsed, creating a cloud of dust that enveloped surrounding properties. The collapse was met with shock by many, including the then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who was quoted as saying that "the collapse of such a building is unprecedented".

Casualties

Immediately after the collapse, as many as 300 were feared trapped underneath the debris. Estimates dropped to 100 trapped or missing a day later, and then to 60, including 26 hotel staff and 16 bank staff unaccounted for. Amongst those killed, 23 were Singaporeans, and the other ten foreigners.

Rescue

Organisation of the Executive Group

After the collapse, many passers-by began to try pulling out survivors. A witness of the accident called the police to inform them of the accident, who thought it was initially a prank call. Upon further confirmation, the police informed the Ministry of Home Affairs and Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) of the collapse. The police also alerted the commissioner of the SCDF, Chng Teow Hua, who went to the site and had officers on stand-by. By the time he arrived to the site, there were only police and firefighting personnel. The SCDF soon arrived. Home affairs minister S. Jayakumar was in a meeting with other government officials when they received news of the collapse; despite the group being unsure of the extent of the collapse, the Executive Group (EG) was summoned, with Jayakumar ordering Second Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Home Affairs Tan Chin Tiong, who was in charge of emergency planning, to alert the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). There was debate over if Tiong, permanent secretary Cheong Quee Wah, and the home affairs ministry's Director of Operations Lim Siam Kim should go to the site to ascertain the situation before activating the EG, though it was decided that every EG member would go to the site to save time and to allow every member to make a judgement.

Deputy Commissioner of Police for operations Tee Tua Ba, who was in charge of ground operations, went to the site. Upon arriving to the site, he found the Emergency Task Force conducting rescue operations alongside members of the public and some firemen. Tee decided to set up a command post, and the Police Command Post vehicle arrived later some time. To establish order, the site of the collapse was cordoned off to members of the public. Tee alerted hospitals and the Ministry of Health on the disaster, and the rest of the EG on the gravity of the situation. After receiving the news, Lim contacted various government departments, and Cheong drove him to the site. The duo arrived at 12:30 pm, and Lim contacted Jayakumar on the disaster, who in turn contacted deputy prime minister Goh Chok Tong. By then, "the Fire Service, SCDF, [and] even members of the public were digging in their own disorganised way", according to Cheong. Once the rest of the EG arrived, a piano shop was used as the group's base of operations as the mobile post's air conditioning was not working. The group had a meeting, and determined that Tee would take command of ground operations, Tan would ascertain the cause of the collapse and provide the group with engineers for consultation, and Lim would inform the media and the public of the progress of the rescue. At 1:50 pm, Jayakumar revealed to reporters that "there was no indication of a bomb explosion" causing the Lian Yak Building's collapse. The workers employed the cut-and-lift method to remove the rubble, and by 5:00 am the next day, much of the upper rubble. They became concerned that the use of heavy machinery might collapse the rubble onto those trapped. Their volunteer efforts, digging four tunnels under the rubble, resulted in the rescue of another eight survivors. The tunnelling experts were later honoured by the Singapore government for their efforts.

As there were survivors buried in the rubble, the rescue was a delicate operation. Debris was carefully removed as power saws and drills cut through the rubble. Sound detectors were used to locate survivors beneath the slabs by picking up faint moans and cries. In the first 12 hours, nine people were rescued by the SAF. At one time, Lieutenant-Colonel Lim Meng Kin (SAF Chief Medical Officer), along with several other SAF medical officers and two doctors from the Health Ministry, took turns crawling through narrow spaces inside the rubble in an effort to provide assistance to trapped survivors, giving glucose and saline drips to them.

The last survivor, 30-year-old Chua Kim Choo, was rescued on 18 March 1986, having survived after hiding beneath a table in the basement. Rescuers worked in three teams in attempt to reach her via tunnels. A body had to be cut in half as it was blocking one of the paths. Power tools to hack through a concrete beam were further limited as leaked petrol from cars parked in the basement car park was detected. Seventeen people were rescued and 33 died following the six-day rescue operation that ended on 21 March.

Committee of Inquiry

Prior to the collapse, witnesses reported hearing an explosion, but Jayakumar declared that "there was no indication of a bomb explosion". Engineers interviewed by The Straits Times on the first day of rescue efforts gave different speculations on the cause of the collapse, ranging from column failures to soil subsidence, arguing that serious structural problems with the building would have been apparent. First Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong ordered a Commission of Inquiry investigation into the accident. During the first day of the collapse, the EG agreed that Tan Swee Beng would go back the Ministry of Home Affairs's office to draft the Commission of Inquiry report. Many potential causes of the accident were investigated. Surviving sections of concrete were tested to ensure they were built to proper construction standards and it was found that they were. The ongoing construction of the underground railway – built by tunnellers who had assisted in the rescue – was investigated, even though the excavations were more than from the collapsed building. It was found that MRT construction had no effect on the building's stability.

Also investigated were the various additions made to the building after its initial construction. Air conditioning systems had been constructed on the roof of the building, the bank had added a large safe, and ceramic tiles had been fixed to the building's exterior, all adding considerably to the building's weight. It was found that the weight of these additions was inconsequential: the original structural engineer had made an error in calculating the building's structural load. The structural engineer had calculated the building's live load (the weight of the building's potential inhabitants, furniture, fixtures, and fittings) but the building's dead load (the weight of the building itself) was completely omitted from the calculation. This meant that the building as constructed could not support its own weight. Three different supporting columns had failed in the days before the disaster. The other columnswhich took on the added weight no longer supported by the failed columnscould not support the building.

According to the local Channel News Asia (CNA), Lian Yak Building was designed by an unqualified draftsman instead of a professional structural engineer. An investigator found that he had over-estimated the dead weight which the columns and walls could support. The draftsman claimed that the building owner Ng Khong Lim (), who eventually died in the collapse incident, had appointed him to design Lian Yak Building, but Ng directed that building work. The investigator also found that Ng requested to use inferior materials to build Lian Yak Building in order to reduce the cost – ultimately costing his life.

Aftermath

Awards

On 27 April 1986, the Government of Singapore honoured five individuals for their assistance in rescue efforts, including three from Ireland, one from the United Kingdom and a local Singaporean. A dinner was also hosted by the Singapore government on 29 April 1986 for public transport operator SMRT Corporation staff involved in the rescue efforts, with Minister of Communications and Information, Yeo Ning Hong, as the guest of honour.

Legislature

Following this disaster, all buildings built in the 1970s in Singapore were thoroughly checked for structural faults, with some of them declared structurally unsound and evacuated for demolition, including the main block of Hwa Chong Junior College and Catholic High School campus at Queen Street.

The government also introduced tighter and stringent regulations on building construction; since 1989, all structural designs are required to be counter-checked by multiple Accredited Checkers. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) also underwent a significant upgrade, in terms of training and equipment, to improve its readiness in performing future possible complex rescue operations.

Site

thumb|The former site of the building as photographed in 2025. The building is now Owen House, replacing the old Fortuna Hotel

Five years after the collapse, construction work commenced on the site for a new seven-story hotel on 28 March 1991. The Fortuna Hotel opened with 85 rooms in 1994.

In media

In July 1986, Singaporean singer-songwriter Kelvin Tan contributed to BigO magazine's Nothing on the Radio cassette the song "Seen the End", after spending two nights at the former Hotel New World site.
In 1990, the disaster was re-enacted in the Chinese-language television series Finishing Line (出人头地), which was aired on SBC 8.
On 25 September 2003, the disaster was featured in the first episode of the second season of the television series True Courage, which was broadcast on English-language MediaCorp TV Channel 5. A Chinese-language version of the series, titled True Courage (逆境勇者), was also on aired on MediaCorp TV Channel 8.
On 27 September 2005, Seconds From Disaster portrayed the disaster in the episode Hotel Collapse Singapore. Instead of the actual site, the program used an image of the area around 88 Syed Alwi Road (at the corner of Kampong Kapor Road) as the basis for a computer-generated reconstruction of the building and its collapse. The episode was retelecast in Singapore on 16 September 2007 via StarHub TV.
In February 2015, Days of Disasters also portrayed the disaster in the episode Hotel New World Collapse.

Footnotes

Explanatory notes

Citations

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