The Highland Towers collapse was an apartment building collapse that occurred on 11 December 1993 in Taman Hillview, Ulu Klang, Selangor, Malaysia. The collapse of Block One of the apartments caused the deaths of 48 people and led to the complete evacuation of the other two blocks due to safety concerns. On 11 December 2010, in collaboration with the seventeenth anniversary of the incident, AETN's History Channel showed an hour-long documentary on the tragedy, with accounts from the victims, their families and former residents.
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The Highland Towers consist of three 12-storey blocks, built in phases between 1975 and 1982 at the western base of a steeply sloped hill which was later terraced extensively in the early 1980s. Each block was respectively named:
A swimming pool was located between northwest side of Block 2 and northeast rear of Block 3. Block 1 collapsed when 10 continuous days of rainfall led to a landslide after the retaining wall behind the Tower's car park failed.
The Highland Towers were once notorious in the 1980s and early 1990s for being a popular spot for the wealthy people to hide their mistresses.
Behind the Towers was a small stream of water known as 'East Creek'. East Creek flowed into the site of the Towers before the Towers' construction. Later, a pipe system was built to divert the stream to bypass the Towers.
In 1991, a new housing development project, known as 'Bukit Antarabangsa Development Project', commenced on the hilltop located behind the Towers. As a result, the hill was cleared of trees and other land-covering plants, exposing the soil to land erosion that will cause land slide .
The water from the construction site was diverted into the same pipe system used to divert the flow of East Creek. Eventually, the pipe system became overly pressurized with the water, sand and silt from both East Creek and the construction site. The pipes burst at various locations on the hill, and the soil had to absorb the excessive water. The monsoon rainfall in December 1993 further worsened the situation.
The water content in the soil had exceeded a dangerous level, and the soil had literally turned into mud. By October 1992, the hill slope had been almost flooded with water, and it was reported that water was seen flowing down the hill slopes and the retaining walls.
Soon after, a landslip took place and destroying the poorly-constructed retaining walls. The landslide was so strong that it has a force equivalent to 200 Boeing 747 jets. The soil rammed onto the foundation of Block One, pushing it forward for a while before causing it to snap and bringing down the apartment block.
A month before the building fell, in November 1993, residents began to see cracks forming and widening on the road around the Highland Towers, a sign of the collapse that sadly not much people took notice.
The official death toll released by the authorities was 48, though other sources gave a number greater than 55. The victims are mainly Malaysian, with 12 foreigners (a Briton, a Japanese, 2 Indians, 2 Koreans, 3 Filipino and 3 Indonesian).[1]
In November 2002, almost nine years after the incident, a bungalow belonging to Affin Bank chairman General (Retired) Tan Sri Ismail Omar collapsed due to a landslide. It was located just metres away from the towers.
On 11 December 2004, in conjunction with the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy, all former residents and victims of the Highland Towers gathered at the site as a final farewell, after knowing that the property will be transferred to AmBank.
Later, on 6 December 2008, just five days short of the 15th anniversary of the incident, another landslide in Bukit Antarabangsa took place just 1.5 kilometres away from Highland Towers. The landslide buried 14 bungalows.
After the tragedy, The Highland Towers memorial stone was placed at the site of Block 1, but sadly it was a victim of much vandalism. Blocks 2 and 3 of the Highland Towers still stand today, although they are now almost completely overgrown by the dense jungle.
In recent years, they have been the site of much vandalism and the buildings are now in almost complete disarray and ruin. In 1998, five years after the tragedy, a team from the Court in charge of the lawsuit visited the Towers and found out to be entirely stripped of its contents, leaving just a naked structure. Drug addicts take the abandoned apartments as a temporary shelter. Rather eerie, the abandoned towers continue to loom out of the green density of the jungle, looking out over the Taman Hillview area.
The Highland Towers had been a popular source of haunted stories in the years thereafter, a result of the tragedy that took forty-eight lives.
There were plans to repair the two remaining blocks and re-occupy them back in 1995, but unfortunately, researches revealed that the blocks were no longer structurally safe and the only thing that could be done is demolish them.
(in English) The Highland Towers Disaster. Singapore: History Asia. 11 Dec 2010. http://www.historyasia.com/synopsis.aspx?libId=1401&sId=826&sTime=1320. Retrieved Dec. 22, 2010.