Tropical
storm behind strongest winds to hit S'pore in 9 yrs
By Tan Yew Guan, Channel NewsAsia
| Posted: 23 April 2009 2033 hrs
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Tropical storm behind strongest winds to hit S'pore in 9
yrs
SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) says a
tropical storm is the reason for the strong winds which blew into
Singapore Wednesday night.
A wind speed of up to 83 kilometres per hour was recorded -- the
strongest in nearly nine years.
Among the damage caused - fallen trees and a broken construction
crane.
Residents of private condominium Abelia woke up to find their
Ardmore Park neighbourhood, near Shangri La Hotel, behind police
lines.
A construction crane at a neighbouring building had snapped into
two, with most of it dangling precariously from the 30th
floor.
Police say a lifting kit connected to the crane was found along the
road. No one was injured.
But the Manpower Ministry has stopped work at the site while it
figures out how to safely recover the crane.
It is investigating the incident, which has also attracted the
attention of other builders nearby.
Tan Heok Ngee Benjamin, Project Manager, [email protected] Pte Ltd, said:
"This crane is commonly used in a lot of construction sites. So if
some problem happens here, we want to see if there is anything we
can do to prevent this from happening."
Officials from the building company involved, Poh Lian
Construction, were tight-lipped about the incident.
Like many others across the island, residents in the neighbourhood
say they experienced unusually strong winds last night.
The winds also wreaked havoc elsewhere across Singapore last
night.
The NEA says the strong winds were caused by a Sumatra squall,
named as such because the storm usually develops overnight in
Sumatra and the Strait of Malacca, before sweeping into Singapore
between midnight and daybreak.
NEA says such storms usually occur between April and
September.
For the rest of the month, we can expect another one or two Sumatra
squalls, but they are unlikely to be as severe as the one on
Wednesday night.
