A Qantas-BOAC Constellation G-ALAM airliner named Able Mike crashed during its landing at the now-defunct Kallang Airport on 13 March 1954 at 3.04 pm. The plane was making a scheduled flight from Sydney to London and had stopped over at Darwin, Australia, and Jakarta, ...
The explosion and fire on board Greek oil tanker S. T. Spyros on 12 October 1978 was described as Singapore’s “worst post-war disaster in terms of lives lost”. Seventy-six people died and 69 others were injured in the accident.
On 29 January 1983, seven people died when the Sentosa cable cars they were aboard plunged into the sea after the derrick of an oil-drilling vessel, Eniwetok, struck the cableway when it was unberthing from the wharf nearby. It was the first fatal accident since ...
Singapore Airlines (SIA) Flight SQ006, which was on its way to Los Angeles from Singapore via Taiwan, crashed on a closed runway at Chiang Kai-shek Airport (now called Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) during take-off on 31 October 2000 at 11.18 pm local time. ...
The first major accident on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system since it started operation in 1987 was a front-to-back collision between two trains at the Clementi Station on 5 August 1993. The accident resulted in 156 injured commuters.
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 117 was hijacked on 26 March 1991 shortly after it took off from Kuala Lumpur. The hijackers were four passengers who claimed to be members of the Pakistan People’s Party. The plane landed at Changi Airport at 10.24 pm. Commandos ...
SilkAir Flight MI 185, while on its way to Singapore from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, nosedived into Musi River near the city of Palembang in South Sumatra, Indonesia, on 19 December 1997 at about 4.13 pm local time. The plane was almost completely destroyed ...
On 3 January 2003 at about 11.35 pm, a patrol vessel commissioned by the Republic of Singapore Navy, the RSS Courageous, collided with a cargo ship, the ANL Indonesia, along the eastern Singapore Straits near Horsburgh Lighthouse (on the island of Pedra Branca). ...
The Lian Yak Building, which housed Hotel New World, collapsed on 15 March 1986 due to structural defects and poor-quality construction. The collapse left 33 people dead, and was considered one of the worst disasters in post-war Singapore. A rescue operation involving ...
One of Singapore's biggest fires occurred in Bukit Ho Swee on 25 May 1961. The fire razed a 100-acre area (0.4 sq km) consisting of a school, shops, factories and wooden and attap houses, leaving some 16,000 kampong dwellers homeless and four fatalities. The property ...
Floods are a common occurrence in Singapore usually caused by a combination of heavy rainfall, high tides and drainage problems, especially in low-lying areas. Most floods in Singapore are flash floods that subside within a few hours. Although most floods cause ...
A bomb exploded in the MacDonald House building situated along Orchard Road on 10 March 1965 at 3.07 pm. The explosion claimed the lives of three people and injured at least 33 others. The bombing had been carried out as part of Indonesian’s Confrontation (also ...
A stretch of Nicoll Highway collapse on 20 April 2004, rendering it unpassable for more than seven months. The disaster occurred due to the collapse of a temporary retaining wall of the tunnel at the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Circle Line at Nicoll Highway. The wall’s ...
Maria Huberdina Hertogh (b. 24 March 1937, Tjimahi, Java, Indonesia–d. 8 July 2009, Huijbergen, Netherlands), also known as Nadra (sometimes spelt as Natra) binte Ma’arof or just Bertha, was the focus of racial riots that occurred in Singapore in December 1950. ...
In March 1999, an abattoir worker in Singapore fell victim to what was initially thought to be the Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus but was subsequently verified as a yet unnamed Hendra-like virus (later known as the Nipah virus).
On 28 September 2011, a fire broke out at an oil refinery owned by Royal Dutch Shell on Pulau Bukom. The blaze began near a system of pipelines carrying various petroleum products and lasted for 32 hours before being extinguished. The Singapore Civil Defence Force ...
The Straits of Singapore lies between Singapore and the Riau Archipelago, Indonesia, and links the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea. It is approximately 113 km long and 5 to 12 km wide, although its narrowest navigable width is 2.9 km. It is on the shipping ...
Pulau Merlimau was one of Singapore’s southern islands off the coast of Jurong before it became part of Jurong Island. It used to house the refinery of the Singapore Refining Company (SRC), a joint venture between British Petroleum, Caltex Petroleum Corporation ...
The Robinson’s Department Store building at Raffles Place was destroyed by a fire that broke out at around 9.55 am on 21 November 1972. The fire, which was one of the worst in Singapore’s history, also caused damage to the roof of the Overseas Union Bank next door ...
On 6 July 1990, a team of doctors at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), led by Dr Tong Ming Chuan, performed the first heart transplant in Singapore. The donor heart was from Ong Soon, a 41-year-old construction worker, who died in an industrial accident. The ...