The Straits
Times 30 September 1999
JUNIOR
COLLEGE COLLAPSES AFTER 23 YEARS
The
Anglo-Chinese Junior College, located at Dover Close East, lay in a
pileof rubble yesterday, after the grand structure of 23 years came
crashing down during morning assembly amidst the singing of the
National Athem. A total of 122 casualties were reported, most of
whom were students who were crushed when the toilets on the second
level collapsed, leaving the largest lecture theatre on the third
level to crumble in a large cloud of dust accumulated in the past
decades.
Civil Defence officers arrived promptly at
the scene, along with official
from the Ministry of Education and various government departments
which were involved in the construction of the College more than
two decades ago.
Mr Lenn, the
vice-principal of the college and long serving teacher said, "We
didn't expect it to cave in on us today. It was really a
down-to-earth experience, and a tragic loss for all of us. We lost
a good deal worth of government equipment." He declined to comment
on how there were 122 students located in the level two toilets
during morning assembly, at which every student is expected to
attend. He also declined to answer exactly how much equipment
belonging the college itself was lost, only
saying that, "We've developed a strong emotional attachment to the
facilities and building itself in the many years that the college
has served us."
Mrs Lim Han Soon, who has been
principal of the school for the past two
years, attempted to explain the cause of the collapse, "I donch
know what these students do sometimes. By having 122 students in
the toilets the ground is sure to collapse."
The student
leading the school in the anthem, requesting to remain anonymous
except for saying that he was a year one student studying at the
currently-levelled college, offered the most logical
explanation. He said, "The college has been undergoing
ground works at the car park recently, which may
have caused a shift in the foundation, leading to the
collapse of the school.
"In addition to that, the
heavy downpour yesterday morning flooded most of the classrooms.
With the kind of structural integrity ACJC has, I wont be surprised
if officials say that water seeping into the crevices of the
chipped concrete actually might have further eroded the walls or
concrete flooring." When asked if his singing could
also have played a part in the tragedy, he could
only raise his hands in frustration, "With
the kind of audio system we have, any singer could bring the
school down."
Structural integrity was the key-phrase at
the press
conference held at the ACJC Sports Complex later in
the morning, as a panel of investigators and architects
explained to a large group of journalists the main reason behind
the fall of the college. "Apparently the gaping holes in the walls
were not reported to the ministry earlier, and thus we were unable
to gauge that the structural integrity of the main block of ACJC
was far from sound. With the extra cabling involving the
installation of fibre optic cables and a host of other inclusions
such as ten-thousand dollar projectors, we never knew that the
building could not take the massive drilling
underground and around the building." said Mr Con Structor,
who is the chief investigator at the site.
A furious
parent of a deceased student accused the Ministry of Education of
overcrowding the junior college with many more students than
logically possible in ACJC, saying, "Twenty years ago there only
600 students in the college, and in recent years this number has
grown to more than 1800. With the kind of sub-standard facilities
that my child has been studying in, how could anyone expect the
building to stand any longer?" Mr Lenn was to point out that this
was not the case, as the ACJC Sports Complex was still standing and
was also considered 'part of the college'. Massive salvage
operations have been carried out in the past 12 hours, with
excavators from a nearby construction site situated at Buona Vista
MRT Station being brought in to remove the
massive amounts of rubble. Emergency operations were also carried out to remove the initial 5m
layer of dust covering the building, using high powered vacuum
cleaners. Salvaged so far was a Neoprint machine, a tub of Cremo
ice-cream, an ACJC umbrella, and a pair of ACJC bears.
Upon
being questioned that a bomb might have been set off in the toilets
instead, the investigative panel quoted that this could have been
the case, except that the only way in which this could have
happened was if there was a massive buildup of
methane in the toilet at the second level, and that a
spontaneous combustion could have triggered
an explosion leading to the collapse.
As a result of the collapse, the
Anglo-Chinese Junior
College would be
temporarily relocated to Raffles Junior College, which is equipped
with similar facilities but lacking in an Olympic-size swimming
pool and a fully-fledged Sports Complex. In return,
ACJC would loan it's Sports Complex to RJC
till it shifts to Bishan, leaving ACJC to take full control
of all its facilities in Ghim Moh.
Upon listening
to the announcement that ACJC would share its premises with
RJC and would eventually take over its campus
there, a prominent Student Councillor from ACJC
whispered, "Looks like we can shelve the upgrading plans
after all, or perhaps we could help upgrade the campus in Ghim Moh
instead..."
In the meantime,
riots were reported to have broken out in RJC, when an ACJC student
was involved in a scuffle with an RJC student. He had tried to put
up the ACJC flag in place of the RJC flag at the flagpoles in RJC.
This angered the Students' Council of RJC, and the situation was
further aggravated when a roving band of ACJC
students repainted the front gates of their college red,
blue and gold. The students from Raffles retaliated, and attacked
the band with grenades made in the chemistry labs.
A mass protest
is expected tomorrow, when RJC students are expected to wear ACJC
uniforms to school.
COPYRIGHT (C) SEPTEMBER 1999
ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY ARE FICTIONAL,
AND EVERY ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO ENSURE
THAT
THIS
INCIDENT IS INDEED JUST A FIGMENT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO LIVING PERSONS
OR STANDING BUILDINGS * AND ORGANIZATIONS IS
MERELY A FAULT OF THE MIND, AND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN
SERIOUSLY.
