Demolition

15 July 2008

Demolition

Not this is not the aftermath of an earthquake.

However to tell this story, I must rewind to the day before where I was on my way home from work. This was on the same street where people were catching fish after Typhoon FengShen broke the reservoir's bank. Given that it has been raining almost everyday since albeit not as heavy, I thought we were encountering another fish catching session when we started to see lots of cars and people gathering.

Only difference was that we were already past the reservoirs already and the folks were crowding around this newly constructed condo. I sensed something not right when we started seeing police cars and trucks and about 60+ police officers in their anti-riot gear, as we got nearer. Truncheons, shields and helmets, the whole nine-yards and they were in ready formation.

Something is definitely not right.

As it turned out according to my World Champion Chauffeur, the gahmen is tearing down this spankingly new condo project and the riot police were there to neutralised any resistance by force, if necessary.

The story, as I was told, was that this project was built without the local gahmen's approval. The developer, obviously thinking that he had the backing of some official, high in the ranks, decided to push ahead with the project despite lacking the necessary permits and numerous warnings.

So what the local gahmen decided to do at the end of the day was to wait for the developer to complete the project before sending the troops with the demolition cranes to tear everything down.

Sibeh guai lan. Must purposely wait until people "seal roof" then send in the muscles to tear it down. Then again, maybe it was a case of you guai lan me, I guai lan you back lor.

I had originally wanted to take pictures of the riot police stand off but didn't dare as there were police everywhere and I may get hauled up by them for taking pictures.

So instead, I only have pictures of the aftermath the day after.

More pictures below to give you an idea how big this condo project was.