[ Timothy Chng is overseeing the construction of houses in the island settlement of New Singapore. Hemmed in by sheer cliffs, the uninhabited island was settled by Singapore's government after Singapore was rendered uninhabitable by the floods]
Singapore. A unique nation with unique people. Now, here's one thing you should know. Inland, where the waves took longer to reach them and the government sent out the evacuation warning, people got scared. They asked ' Why? Who? What? I'm in the middle of something!'. Now, I'm not saying this 'individuality' is a bad thing. But it cost the people precious minutes of fear and panic. Minutes that could have been used to escape. But here in Singapore, when the Government says jump, we say how high? We may complain, but sooner or later we'll do it. This is how Singapore avoided the casualties that other nations like the Thousand Islands suffered.
When it happened, I was in bed in my flat, one of the many dotting the island. That's another thing. The flats acted as a shield, whereas in other countries the skyline was kept pristine and untouched. But the waves still took out a great deal.
The air raid siren sounded. I snapped awake as it told everybody to head either to the tallest building in sight or inland. As one, Singapore snapped into action. I grabbed a rucksack and stuffed it full of my essentials. In hindsight it seems stupid, but those valuables were worth their weight in gold in the refugee camps. I decided to head inland. If it really was a killer wave, I was near the coast and in an older flat and living on the second floor. I wouldn't stand a chance. I came across my elderly neighbour, Mrs Chen on the way out. She called to me in Hokkien.' What is going on?'. She didn't speak Mandarin and was illiterate. I told her Singapore was evacuating. Old woman, senile, she just walked back into her flat nonchalantly. I don't even know if she heard me. Maybe I screwed up my Hokkien. Maybe she just didn't care. But her face still haunts me.
My neighbours and I began scrambling to the stairs. One or two people tried to take the lift, but Saint John's( Singapore's power station) had been knocked out by this point.
I was fresh out of National Service( the mandatory conscription for all Singapore men) and had kept relatively fit and healthy. My flat was in a less developed area. The vicinity was relatively flat, with lots of houses. I could hear the honking of car horns on the streets below. I reached the top of my building just as the roar of the sea reached my ears.
The sea rushed through the streets and smashed up cars. The water was a strange brown colour. Straight ahead of me was row upon row of townhouses. Flat on the ground, well below the water level... poor bastards didn't even have time to run. I watched as one woman attempted to outrun the flood. She held a bundle in her hands. To this day, I tell myself it was just some clothes. The water knocked her flat. It was easily two stories high. She would have been crushed by the water, or if not smashed against something or drowned. The Malay woman next to me began to mumble prayers. The water reached our row of flats. We were situated on a flat-topped hill, a collection of seven buildings. I winced as we braced for impact. The waves hit the base of the building.
And the building held.
But Mrs Chen was almost certainly drowned by now. The waves would have flooded the lower stories. They rushed past the building and cleared the hill we were on and began to flow down. Down on the ground, people climbed on to cars, buses, houses, whatever could get them higher. The water swept in, knocking them off, sending them to their doom...
Another building in the distance crashed to the ground. I could hear the screams of people below, but there was nothing to be done.
It took hours, but the water eventually receded. We walked down to the ground. Around us was puddle after puddle and pieces of wreckage. I began to walk inland.
It took me another hour to reach the centre of Singapore. The place had been transformed into a refugee camp, centered around the park. People were putting up these huge tents. Everyone was confused and angry. Some said it was Judgement Day; others said it was freak weather. If they'd bothered to look up, the three causes of the floods was literally staring them in their faces. Some people tried to leave the camp, heading for their homes. The police stopped them, saying it wasn't safe, to wait for the government search parties. So we could only huddle and wait in fear. Sometime later, a helicopter appeared over the horizon. It had a large crate slung under it. People speculated if it contained food, supplies, water. I recognised it as one of the search helicopters that was sent out. Others saw this too and anxiously waited for it, hoping that their loved ones were safe. The chopper placed the crate on the ground. It was giving off a foul stench- that of the dead. A ladder was placed at the rim and an official climbed up and opened the top. Only then did we see it- the crate was filled with corpses marked for burial.
[I:The death crates?]
Yep. The death toll was so high, it was a waste of space to carry them into the helicopter. So they started piling the dead into these huge plywood crates. This idea was repeated all over the world. Eventually, the real supplies arrived. Food, water, medicine. They were carefully rationed out. People began to get forlorn and hopeless. The choppers began bringing back people. But the chain of command had broken down. People threw themselves at the feet of the search teams, begging for them to search again. Some even thrust money towards them.
[ Did any accept?]
Well, the generals were watching, what could they do? I had volunteered to dig graves for extra holes in which the dead would be dumped. The salt water had corroded their corpses so badly there wasn't any point in identifying them. I remember the dead being poured into the hole, then us having to cover them up...
Eventually, planes began to carry off people to neighbouring Indonesia. Their cities were mostly inland and had hence been spared. Our Prime Minister was in China on a summit at the time, so he was spared. But our government was in ruins. And over a quarter of our population was missing or dead. Only the swift, quick evacuation prevented more loss of life. Our people, all storming inland at the same time, when others hesitated. That's how we survived.
[ He receives a bag of brown liquid from another worker. He hands it to me.]
Kopi?
