It has been more than a week since the collapse of Nicoll Highway over here at what marks to be the first major disaster of the year. I’m not sure about the rest of you guys, but over the last few years I noticed that there will always be an incident that “marks” the year in our memories (and of course the media doesn’t help) and sometimes there will be a mark for the first half of the year, and another in the last half, sort of like a way to distinguish how the year in question moved from bad to worse, or from bad to better.
I’m sure all the advertising, media and sociologist reoriented people are interested in finding out the factors that contribute to having people collectively remember a subject in identical terms that is then linked to form an opinion of another, but that’s beyond the scope of this post (or my brain of that matter). You know, I think there actually is a term for this kind of “massively inducted memories”. Someone care to enlighten me?
As mentioned above, the last few years have had their fare share of incidents that has affected lives here, but this one for this year is different. While the previous ones such as less people traveling and health awareness because of SARS and bird flu have had a direct effect on our economy, the Highway incident is something more inconspicuous and yet the effect could be more long-lasting. In this case, it affects the infrastructure.
While the closure of the highway is at best a minor inconvenience many, especially in the east, felt its effect. This only hints at what possible widespread effect could occur and how fragile our infrastructure actually is. The possible problem is further cascaded with the incident affecting the whole new MRT line, with the project being held up indefinitely as safety checks and new plans are drawn up. While not having the new line itself is not much of a problem, the fact that all the construction that has already been started would be left open and thus compound the weakness of the infrastructure for a much longer period. For the very nature of building something, dictates that the item in question lies in a weaken state until it is completed.
I guess we can only hope and pray that the situation is still under control and that we would not be caught in this “limbo” while it drains our reserves and undermines our infrastructure. The circle line MRT project was perhaps pushed too hard. Maybe more restraint is needed.
