UCSI e-News - Feature

LANDSLIDE! Trapped in Bukit Antarabangsa

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By Prof. Dr. Norfadzillah Hitam, Vice President, Corporate Affairs

It sounded like a heavy excavator labouring to drive uphill in gear one, painfully slow, groaning noisily for a full two minutes before it died out.

I wondered what kind of construction work was taking place that would require men to work at that unearthly hour – about 3.30am, 6th December 2008. I had been awake since 2.00am to complete some office work before taking Hari Raya Aidil Adha leave the following Monday, and there was absolute tranquility at Bukit Antarabangsa – until then.

Suddenly, the lights went out. My laptop blinked as the power was cut off.

In the pitch-black darkness, I groped my way to find the flashlight kept outside my bedroom door, meant for use in exactly this kind of situation. Flashlight in hand, I peered up at the fuse box and saw that the lever was in the “ON” position, which meant that this was no ordinary power trip. I had also paid my electricity bills, so this was not a TNB disconnection. I peeked out the windows and saw that the whole of Bukit Antarabangsa was also in pitch darkness! So, I consoled myself, this must be a major electricity power failure. No worries, it will be fixed soon.

The heavy rumbling returned a second time – the excavator laboriously lumbering uphill again.

And then, within minutes, I heard another kind of droning, more raucous and powerful – helicopters! Two or three of them were hovering over my Kyoto Gardens condo, criss-crossing the Bukit Antarabangsa skyline for about 15 minutes.

What’s going on?! I asked myself.

Too afraid to open the door and look out at the helicopters from my garden verandah (I was home alone that night as my son Andy was staying out with friends), I went to bed and shut out the sounds, sinking into blissful sleep, thoughts of a national disaster farthest away from my mind.

I woke up at 7.00am to get ready for work. I had to attend the Hilton Train Charity Event that morning. I washed my hair (and suddenly realised I could not use the hairdryer because there was no electricity) and dressed up. I actually dried my wet hair over the stove flames, to fashion the unruly curls into some semblance of a ‘coiffure’! That was around 8.00am.

Then my brother in Seremban called me. He said “Sis, are you alright?”

“Of course I’m alright, why shouldn’t I be? I am just going to drive out to work right now. Wassup?”

“I heard on the radio that Bukit Antarabangsa has just been struck by a landslide!”

“Haahhh??!!”

Suddenly the truth struck me. The rumblings I had heard a few hours before were the sounds of the landslide; the helicopters were rescue teams investigating the disaster.

In a flash, I changed into my jeans and sneakers and rushed out to my garden to look down at the road at the foot of my condo-hill. True enough, the whole stretch of road was jam-packed with stranded vehicles that couldn’t pass through because our main road was blocked by a one storey-high landslide. Hundreds of stranded residents gathered outside the police “Keep Out” yellow tape, staring in disbelief at the sight of a bungalow perched topsy-turvy on top of the earthpile, in the middle of our road!

One house was half-sunk, a car piled on top of its roof, alarm system still screaming. It was just five hours after the landslide, and I wondered whether the occupants were still trapped underneath the rubble. Rescue teams had not reached this spot yet, so we waited for them to do the necessary, instead of scrambling around endangering ourselves and creating more problems.

The Taman Bukit Mewah road was full of people who were either residents who had come back to salvage their belongings, or people who just came to view the carnage. We all watched helplessly in silence, completely unequipped to deal with such a situation.

The scene on the other side of the earth-blocked road was surrealistic. There were civilians and uniformed personnel scurrying everywhere: soldiers in jungle fatigues, civil defence, fire brigade, Red Crescent, SMART, police, medicos, etc. They were bustling around setting up tents, equipment, registration centres and all the necessary Operations Room paraphernalia. The Majlis Perbandaran Ampang Jaya (MPAJ) and ADUN Bukit Antarabangsa also set up tents. Within two hours, our picturesque tree-lined avenue, which passes through the Riverdale Apartments, Taman Bukit Mewah and Taman Bukit Mulia, was transformed into a carnival ground of sorts, but one with a grim and deathly mission – to rescue survivors and recover the dead. I trudged back home again – barely 300 metres from the scene of death and destruction – feeling sad and sorry for all the direct victims, and in total disbelief that such a horrendous calamity could strike our beautiful, serene community.

By 3.00pm the day after, on 7th December, I decided to evacuate my home and leave Bukit Antarabangsa because it was impossible to stay: there was no electricity and no phone line, hence no means to communicate with the outside world. Our vehicles were also trapped because the landslide blocked our main road. Relatives and friends were frantically calling in and sending messages enquiring about my safety; my mobile phone battery was dying out, not rechargeable. We were completely cut off. The rescue teams had passed the word around that we were to evacuate immediately for fear of further landslides.

I fled my home with my survivor kit: laptop, two-to-three pieces of clothing, and make-up bag (!), all stuffed into a small backpack. Slowly, I followed a small crowd walking towards our escape route – the steep forested hill some 100 meters across from my condo.

I looked up. Oh, man…the hill was about three storeys high, with a 60-degree incline. It was like climbing the Kinabalu Mountain terrain all over again, which I had done the year before.

Soldiers had cut a crude path up the hill and had thrown a one-inch-thick nylon rope alongside a big hill-slope drain, twining it around tree roots and branches all the way down from the top. Climbers exited near the Athenium condominium, scene of a landslide scare some years before.

With a muttered “Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,” (I begin in the name of Allah) I hauled myself up the soggy earth, gingerly seeking footing. A group of young Indonesian maids clutching their belongings in plastic bags followed my path upwards.

It was a twenty-minute climb to the top. We made it.

The soldiers were truly admirable. In the heavy downpour that exacerbated the grimness of the tragedy further, they silently and efficiently helped the evacuees carry their bags and baggage up the hill, held children in their arms up to the top, and held our hands up the steep gradient, gently guiding us on. I felt so proud of them. Naturally, since I am an ‘army brat’ myself.

I looked down at the unreal scene below me: hundreds of trapped Bukit Antarabangsa residents slowly winding their way through the muddy jungle path, up the hill route. It reminded me of scenes of refugees in other parts of the world we usually see on TV. But this was not India, Bosnia, Vietnam or Afghanistan. This was urban Kuala Lumpur.

A few days later, Andy and I and two friends went back to our home to collect clothes and important documents when the authorities permitted it. But we had to register and get an entry pass at the Registration centre at base camp just outside the landslide area. While I was asking around where the Registration tent was, a tall, commanding figure in uniform approached me. It was no less than Malaysia’s Inspector General of Police, Tan Seri Musa Hassan. He kindly asked about my welfare and requirements. When I explained my intention to return home to collect some belongings, Tan Seri Musa immediately arranged for escorts to accompany me and my family to help pack and carry our belongings. As we stood talking, other police officers gathered around and joined the conversation. I felt like a celebrity! After registering our names, all of us walked the 500 metres towards my condominium, escorted by four young civil defence personnel in uniform – Nazura, Krishnan, Mahadi and Nuraznin. I am so thankful for their presence.

We walked through the perimeter of the landslide heading towards Impian Selatan condominium (now declared unsafe and abandoned), slip-sliding through the mud and floods that had suddenly risen around the damaged homes. At difficult slopes, soldiers had quickly constructed makeshift plank ‘bridges’ and rope handrails to help evacuees walk through. They stood by all along the way, steadying the planks, holding our hands and passing us on from one soldier to another as we negotiated the tricky pathways. At one point, we stepped aside to allow two soldiers carry a paraplegic man down the steep, slippery slope.

We hastily packed important personal documents and clothes into a few bags and backpacks, put them in our car, and drove down to Impian Selatan again where we abandoned it. Thank God we had the four young and helpful civil defence escorts to help us carry the baggage when we trekked down towards base camp again.

For days after, I sat around the TV to monitor progress reports about the area, heart-in-mouth, expecting the worst. I primed myself to hear reports that my condo unit had sunk into the ground in the relentless rain that followed. Everyone was afraid to go home. When Hari Raya Haji came two days later on Monday, 8th December, it was a very quiet and subdued celebration for most Muslim victims.

Every day, for weeks later, the media focused on Bukit Antarabangsa. Full-page colour photos of the tragedy dominated every daily newspaper for about two weeks. This was followed by accusations and counter-accusations, reports, press statements and comments by public agencies, private developers and ordinary citizens, debating the safety of the area and the people responsible for the landslide. The Malaysian government immediately banned all hill-slope development. They did that when the Highland Towers collapsed in 1991, I thought cynically, when Bukit Antarabangsa experienced a landslide in 1998, and when other landslides in the Ampang area occurred more recently. Yet, hillslide development continued unabated, and more houses appeared on hills around the Klang Valley.

In the meantime, the JKR had built a new alternative road to provide access to the residents in the hinterland areas, which pass through a row of bungalows in Taman Bukit Mewah that barely escaped the landslide. Even as I write this, a few months later, these houses remain vacant and desolate, abandoned by their owners. I am certain they left because of the incessant traffic that passes by every minute a few feet away from their front doors. I often wonder where all these poor home owners are now. How did they fare after fleeing their homes? And how do they get on with their lives?

Along the stricken main road, police, JKR and the Ampang Jaya ADUN bases remained intact to provide shelter to police and city council personnel who guard abandoned properties and monitor clearing and reconstruction progress. One by one, the damaged houses were demolished and the blocked road cleared. Exactly a month after the landslide occurred, it was re-opened. Driving through the reconstructed road for the first time gave me an eerie feeling: beautiful homes with colourful gardens have been replaced with rocky, barren land and bare slopes on both sides of the road.

As for me, I moved back home 10 days after this painful tragedy, and life has since picked up again. Friends and relatives, worried for my safety, urge me to sell out and live elsewhere. But where can I find an affordable home like Kyoto Gardens in Bukit Antarabangsa, where angsana and flame-of-the-forest trees line the road, where pretty birds and squirrels scamper around my garden, and sometimes even wandering monkeys perch on the casuarina trees; where the road is free of roadside stalls and vendors and where the little ‘hamlet’ town five minutes away provides every possible amenity?

I love the serenity and solitude of Bukit Antarabangsa so much, I will not sell out.

Unless…someone out there is interested?