On Thursday December 4, 2008 around 5.10PM, I was in my office at Amanah Raya Building cleaning up my in-box. The rain which started after lunch hour had finally stopped. In a corner of my mind, I foresee a lighter traffic so I can sign off early that day. Coupled with the school holiday, my prediction may come true.
Suddenly I felt like the earth beneath my office moves. For split second my mind was ‘empty’. They say that the moment before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, it is not quite the experience that I have. It just ‘blank’! Then a loud ‘bang’!
Everybody rushing to the windows to see what is going on. All of us cannot believe what we saw before us; the wall just besides our office building had collapsed, smashing few cars parked beneath the wall. The wall is just next our building and the latter shares the same slope. If the wall can collapse, our building may be next. We were hit by landslides!
In a state of confusion, the logical instinct is to leave the building. With or without announcement, we grab all things within our reach; laptop, handbags, curry puff (at the time before the incident it is near to end of office hour and some in the midst of letting their hair down) etc and hit the stairs. Once outside, I saw that many had already evacuated the building. Everybody was engrossed with the person next to them giving their version of what just happened.
I took a position away from the landslides. I saw one of staff actually standing at the edge of the slope and took some photo using her mobile. So bold, perhaps she will share the photo with me later. We have been informed later that apart from those ‘unfortunate’ cars, there are no other casualties.
We have been told that we cannot enter the building as it has been sealed off for safety measures. Part of the road in front of the building was closed to make way for the fire engine. I can see that this incident caused a massive traffic jam in front of our office; some due to the road closure and most of it due to people slowing down ‘enjoying’ the ‘breathtaking’ sight. So much of signing off early...sigh...
I looked at the landslide and took a deep breath. We disturbed the order of Mother Nature and blame it as an ‘act of god’!
Suddenly I felt like the earth beneath my office moves. For split second my mind was ‘empty’. They say that the moment before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, it is not quite the experience that I have. It just ‘blank’! Then a loud ‘bang’!
Everybody rushing to the windows to see what is going on. All of us cannot believe what we saw before us; the wall just besides our office building had collapsed, smashing few cars parked beneath the wall. The wall is just next our building and the latter shares the same slope. If the wall can collapse, our building may be next. We were hit by landslides!
In a state of confusion, the logical instinct is to leave the building. With or without announcement, we grab all things within our reach; laptop, handbags, curry puff (at the time before the incident it is near to end of office hour and some in the midst of letting their hair down) etc and hit the stairs. Once outside, I saw that many had already evacuated the building. Everybody was engrossed with the person next to them giving their version of what just happened.
I took a position away from the landslides. I saw one of staff actually standing at the edge of the slope and took some photo using her mobile. So bold, perhaps she will share the photo with me later. We have been informed later that apart from those ‘unfortunate’ cars, there are no other casualties.
We have been told that we cannot enter the building as it has been sealed off for safety measures. Part of the road in front of the building was closed to make way for the fire engine. I can see that this incident caused a massive traffic jam in front of our office; some due to the road closure and most of it due to people slowing down ‘enjoying’ the ‘breathtaking’ sight. So much of signing off early...sigh...
I looked at the landslide and took a deep breath. We disturbed the order of Mother Nature and blame it as an ‘act of god’!
1 comment:
Funny you should mention the curry puffs. As it was then, I was mid way eating my warm curry puff when I heard the loud bang! But I have a different version from yours, I heard a loud bang, followed then by the building shaking...
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