The collapse of the roof of the RM300 million 50,000-capacity Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Gong Badak within a year of completion provoked disbelief, shock and outrage with a whole spectrum of unflattering comments and reactions.
One reaction is that the shocking collapse of the RM300 million stadium within a year of completion is a disaster waiting to happen. An engineer, A. Mohamed who often jogged in the area, has told the media that he had noticed that the space frame which held the roof was getting bent out of shape but his efforts to warn government agencies and the media of the stadium defects were ignored.
Another is that the collapse is the inevitable consequence of a system which gives premium to “know who” than “know how”, the curse of Umno cronyism hiding under the guise of New Economic Policy. Will the Umno cronies responsible for the infamous collapse of the RM300 million stadium roof within a year of completion be exposed and fully penalized?
I was told this morning that the collapse of the Gong Badak Stadium symbolizes the collapse of the “1Malaysia” slogan of Datuk Seri Najib Razak marking his second month as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Another opined that it marked the fulfilment of the most famous Malaysian political prophecy, RAHMAN, with Najib as the last Umno Prime Minister.
From the larger national macro perspective, the collapse of the roof of the RM300 million stadium within a year of its completion is the latest warning of the serious and quite terminal breakdown of standards and benchmarks of excellence with the consequence that far from realizing Vision 2020 and becoming a developed nation, Malaysia risks entering the cycle of being a failed state.
There is no shortage of such shocking examples in recent months, viz:
- The collapse of the five-storey portion of the Jaya supermarket in Petaling Jaya during demolition work, killing seven, when in developed countries the implosion of skyscrapers without mishap has become a routine.
- The Universiti Sains Malaysia Apex University fiasco where 4,574 university students suffered emotional havoc when they were told that they had been mistakenly informed that they had been successful in their applications for admission;
- Universal broadband complaints, such as the complaint in Penang since last evening of sheer inability to access Internet even when trebly insured, having Streamyx, Maxis 3G and Celcom 3G.
- Ah Longs having parallel system of underground IGP, CPOs, OCPDs and prisons, with endemic crime and police inability to ensure that Malaysians, tourists and investors are safe in the streets, public places and the privacy of their homes.
The list can go on. As if these signs are not bad enough, Kuala Lumpur has been named No. 4 as the riskiest locations in the world for outsourcing by the “Black Book of Outsourcing”, in a survey of 50 international locations. Singapore tops the list of the world’s safest location in the world for outsourcing.
On “Personal Crime Rate & Police-to-citizen ratio”, Kuala Lumpur is ranked the fourth worst of 50 locations while Singapore is ranked the top best!
Cabinet and Parliament must focus on the issue whether Malaysia has lost the battle to become a developed nation and has entered the cycle to become a failed state under Najib as Prime Minister.
#1 by blablowbla on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 8:14 am
no such issue as becoming a failed state,it’s already a failed state!
just like pdrm says,dun tarnish their image,do u ppl think pdrm still has image?yes,but very bad bad bad image!
no wonder our nga-brothers frm ipoh said,pdrm sud be prdm,polis raja di m’sia.
#2 by taiking on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 10:56 am
Just returned to the country and immediately discovered wot a rotten place malaysia is.
12.5b missing.
Building collapsed.
Stadium roof collapsed.
Along with the perak assembly fiascos.
The scholarship fiasco.
The usm fiasco.
The ah long menace (didnt ong ka ting declare war on ah long – oh yeah he is no longer in office now).
Snatch thieves menace.
The 5 riskiest outsourcing destination ranking.
The wonton arrest of people in black or who carry lit candles.
The murder and disintegration of a mongolian woman and her unborn child.
The 6.2% contraction of our economy.
I agree with LKS. We are definitely heading in the direction of a failed state.
At least in sichuan buildings collapsed under the force for a massive earthquake. Our stadium in terengganu collapsed in the absence of any design live load.
From news report and pictures shown in the papers one half of the roof went down. Cant tell the precise state of the other half (i.e. the other roof covering the opposite part of the stadium). Chances are its construction fault again. The roof must be supported by a space frame – a steel structure. Structural design of space frames of such size is no longer a novel thing today. A malaysian structural engineer, DR YS Lau (an old man then) designed the largest space frame in the world more than 25 yrs ago – the changi airport hanger – still standing. Computer software could do that work for engineers today. So it is actually lame for muhideen to comment that the stadium should not collapse after one year. Steel structures should last ages. Look at eiffel tower – built 120 yrs ago. He should have said something like the government will get to the bottom of it and charge those responsible with criminal wrongs. I am quite certain some criminal wrongs have been committed here.
Structural steel space-frame is a wonderful structure. It is light (in engineering terms but in actual fact still very heavy because of the steel used) and it can span a very large distance thus giving the possibility of column free space beneath. It is called a space frame because the structure is not merely planar. It occupies a certain amount of space – i.e. three dimensional space and hollow looking. The structure consist of mainly straight structural elements and those elements are linked together at a series of nodes which for construction purposes take the form of steel balls. For a stadium the entire weight of the roof structure (and including its life loads) would have to be borne by a series of columns at the rear of the stadium. Since the structure is only supported at one end, the whole roof would protrude from the columns as a cantilever structure. So the columns are very important structural elements in such designs. The columns must be able to take vertical loads and more critically bending loads coming from the protruding cantilevers. Wind load can also be nasty (and tricky) especially because the structure is very large. So during design stage wind load must be taken into consideration as well. The columns may be in steel or in concrete (concrete better for structural stability) but the joints between the column and the space frame must be adequately strong because the whole roof load would be transferred to the columns through the joints.
I saw an unclear pic of the stadium (downloaded from the Web) when it was in use (stadium was full of spectators). Strangely, I thought the roof does not look like a full space structure. The underside of the roof has a somewhat ribbed like appearance which gave me the impression of a series of closely spaced curved space-beams without any horizontal straight elements linking the bottom of those beams together. (That is an unstable roof structure!) Has anyone got a clear pic of the underside of the roof showing the support structure? Pls post it here or email to me at taikinglee@alumni.nus.edu.sg
#3 by House Victim on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 11:21 am
No doubt the problems of BN Government are almost endless due to the corruption and malfunction of the administration. Since the Police and the Judiciary system are under Federal, there are little that the PKR Government can do. But, shouldn’t PKR Government be at least in the position to collect what are grievance to the People and give a reminder to the Federal?
People are here in hope that they can voice out, at least to PKR to draw the attention of the People what REALLY happened and hope more People will come to support PKR. And, surely, there are and will be what PKR will do!
PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTING THAT ASK WHAT PKR CAN DO!!
When DAP was/is bully by the Police, what do you feel?
Can you feel the grievance of a normal person when he was bully by the lawyer and then the Police, KUP and AG and also PCB for two years and more?
When this happened, do you think it is offensive to ask in this blog, what the DAP Government “could do”?
PLEASE PRACTICE DEMOCRACY TO ALLOW VOICING OF GRIEVANCE ESPECIALLY FOR WHAT HAPPENED IN A STATE GOVERNED BY YOUR PARTY.
#4 by cintanegara on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 11:40 am
Taiking….it has not been forgotten by those involved nor has it been forgotten by you…..The New Hotel disaster that claimed 33 lives…
#5 by taiking on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 12:00 pm
cintanegara do you know what happened in the new world hotel and what led to the collapse?
#6 by cintanegara on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 12:12 pm
check the facts in Wikipedia…
#7 by johnnypok on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 1:29 pm
TDM launched the attack to rape and sodomise bolehland. They become more and more daring. It has now become a daylight robbery. The murder of Altantuya speaks all.
#8 by taiking on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 1:45 pm
Good cintanegara tell us what it means – what wikipedia said.
#9 by ktteokt on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 6:44 pm
I personally think that the main contractor who tendered for the project should be made 100% answerable for the collapse. After all, he is the one who CLAIMED to be able to undertake the job when he tendered for it, so he shouldn’t pass the bug down to the guy who actually executed the works. This will serve a lesson to those ALI BABAS who intend to tender for government projects in the future!!!!!
#10 by House Victim on Friday, 5 June 2009 - 11:13 pm
A HEARTY THANKS FOR ALLOWING MY COMMENT TO RESUME!
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In order for the country to move forwards, case study are the best to provide facts and reflect problems. For construction problems, I believe the following worth mentioning,
1. Politics or rather relationship in most cases override the technical or economical consideration of a project and so the tender.
2. Project monitoring or rules goes along with Political decision rather than Professional and technical requirements. How can a Minister (Sammy) waived the need of CF for Government buildings? (I believe he declared this when Palace of Justice was in heavy problems!!). And, of course, when those Government agents involved in monitoring are closing their eyes. At least a lot can be found in the housing problem. The problem was worsen when the Government had passed the bucket to the private sector when the Government had not done their jobs, such as the issue of CF for housing (in time!!).
3. The Independency of those Professional bodies – such as the Architect, Construction, Survey, etc.
When anything happened in this country, did any professional parties dare to provide their fair opinion or investigating from their professions what could be the problems.
The overall are
1. Legislation did not make the suitable laws with clear specification of jobs and responsibility. The Government or its agents are generally the one to enforce, but, very often they are almost immune from prosecution with the incorporate of Public Servant Act. How can a housing property be under 3 Laws – Housing Developer Act, Strata Title Act, Building Management Act without even synchronizing on the wordings or in clear connection!! Whereas same was under two Act and then finally one in Singapore!!
2. The enforcing are almost at the agents’ disposal without much liabilities or being specified.
3. The efficiency of the Judiciary system is another loophole even when problems can be identified and should be justified in court. Finding a good and reliable lawyer and fair judge, sometimes, is more difficult than building a project!!
4. When Professional bodies are not able to give a fair view when cases come, it is also hard to rectify, enforce or get justice.
IF ADMINISTRATION & PROFESSIONAL HAD BEEN STRICT and Efficient, I BELIEVE A LOT OF THESE TYPE OF CASES CAN BE AVOIDED.
Anything goes political than they should be will collapse!! Surely corruption is another deadlock!!
#11 by johnnypok on Friday, 12 June 2009 - 12:43 am
We can forget about developed nation, and rather op for a ‘BANKRUPT NATION’ even before 2020
The new PM will help to speed up the demise of our nation, before he says good-bye to us, en route to meet Altantuya in hell where they will get married and live happily ever after, while Roast Mah will migrate to Mongolia to look after Altantuya’s son.