CASANA: Two tree-falls in one day because of rain in different parts of Singapore. This happened yesterday morning after a heavy that started at about 5.30am. It raises questions as to whether the NParks, which falls under the purview of the Ministry of National Development, is out and about doing its job to ensure the public is safe from old trees.
In the morning, a huge tree that fell along the Ayer Rajah Expressway caused a chain collision between a car, lorry and public bus. Luckily no one was badly injured.
At Holland Close, a tree about 8-floors high came tumbling down, damaging gas pipes and cutting supply to more than 100 households. The branches of the huge tree smashed windows of 5 units of Block 1 Holland CLose, but luckily again, there were no casualties.
At least 19 trees have fallen over the past 2 months due to thunderstorms.
For some home-dwellers, it means the destruction of their property. Last month, a 12-storey high heritage tree, the Purple Milettia fell and crashed into several Pearl’s Bank apartments.
For others, it means death, or worse, living in a vegetative state – like this Malaysian father of 2 who is now in a coma.
I would like to know what the efforts are of NParks in checking on public trees and ensuring their existence is safe for, well, the public at large.
We’re not talking about a couple of incidents over several years – rather, we’re looking at several incidents over a couple of months. People have died and homes have been destroyed.
Police officers work hard to prevent the damage of property while civil defence officers strive to minimise such destruction. Officers from both agencies perform the crucial task of saving lives. Are officers from NParks working just as hard to at least prevent undue destruction?
It’s not enough just to write off such mishaps as “acts of God”.
Thank you Casana for this letter.
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