BK17110041 Assignment 1 KM00303 PDF

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KM 00303 ETHICS AND LAW FOR ENGINEERS ASSIGNMENT 1 NUR HANANNEY BINTI SANIN (BK17110041) INCIDENT OF HIGHLAND TOWER

Introduction Malaysia is a country that experiences frequent landslides due to having two monsoon seasons every year. Furthermore, the development and infrastructure of the building have encroached into the hilly areas including the building within the human-made slopes, contributing more to the causes of the landslides to be happened. The most notorious collapse in the history was the collapse of a 12-storey building of Highland Towers Apartment located on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur that occurred in December 1993, where it caused the deaths of 48 people, is the famous legendary tragedy that had happened in the history of Malaysia as well as one type of failure in engineering. The slope with rubble walls was collapse, bringing down the Block 1 of Highland Towers Apartment that was built in 1978, while the other two remaining blocks are still standing until these recent days but they were evacuated right after the collapse of Block 1 for the safety concerns.

Figure 1: One of the blocks of Highland Tower Apartment were collapsed on Dec 11, 1993 Source: Gul A, F., Islam R, M., Rahman W. (2017) Highland Tower consists of three blocks, named simply Block 1, Block 2 and Block 3, where it was the living of the middle-class people, as well as becoming a home to a significant number of expatriates (Rojak Daily, 2018). These blocks were built in phases where Block 1 was the first to be constructed around 1977, located at the southern-most, and followed by Block 2 and Block 3 in between 1979 and 1981.

A small stream of water or known as East Stream was present even before the construction of the Highland Tower which was located directly behind the 3 blocks. A pipe system was designed and built northward which it already diverged from its natural course of flowing to the south (Rojak Daily, 2018). After 10 days of non-stop rainfall, the landslides occurred, dragging the foundation of the Block 1 to be collapsed. Due to monsoon that had been happening at that time, the rescue effort was hampered by the unstable rubble and at some moment, they works of rescuing the survivors and searching for dead bodies have to be halted as minor landslide was happening on the hill behind the collapsed building (SCDF, 2019). Literature Review The nation probably would be blaming on the climate as it was the main cause of the Block 1 to be collapsed like a deck of cards after several days of non-stop rainfall but the truth is there were ethical issues occurred during the construction of the apartment. There are so many housing projects that are been developed these days but still could be used until now and for the long term used as the developers, architecture, engineer and contractor are responsible towards their job. The main causes of this incident happened are mainly caused by the human factor which are the pipe system that had been laid out to prevent it from flowing into the terraced hill site of the Highland Tower was not being properly maintenance and it became clogged with sand and silt (Ujang A, 2020). This situation has made the pipe to be burst out due to excessive load and hence, it washed over the slope (Nazri F, 2006). Furthermore, a project of condominium, Bukit Antarabangsa Project that was built on the hilltop just behind the Highland Towers in 1991, triggered another unwanted watery situation (Nazri F, 2006) as the project led to clearing the trees and groundcovers from the hills (Rojak Daily, 2018). Thus, landslides were occurred as the soil had no protection against the erosion. The retrogressive failures finally occurred (Figure 2) as it was triggered by inadequate drainage.

Figure 2: The Sequence of Retrogressive Slope Failure Source: Sew-S, G., Wai-S, C. (2017)

Besides, it is reported that the slope and rubble walls behind and in front of the Block 1 were improperly designed as the Safety Factor (FOS) is found to be less than 1 (Sew-S, G., Wai-S, C., 2017), where the structures and components with factor of safety below than 1 will definitely fail as any additional load cannot be supported when it already reached the design load. This has caused the toppling off the Block 1 building as lateral pressure is increased for several hours of continuous rainfall due to large soil movement. Moreover, the design errors include improper soil’s bearing test as well as failure to identify the peripheral condition at site, where the instability of the rail pile foundation is not designed for lateral loading (Kazmi, D., Qasim, S., Harahap, I., & Baharom, S., 2017) have triggered more the series of landslides. Discussion Highland Towers tragedy has a great impact to the society as it keeps on haunting them in especially the survivors to live for many years after the incident due to human errors in conducting a huge project that includes the life of many people. The professional body that is in charge of constructing a housing project, as well as other infrastructures that need to be used by the society should be following and must be concerned about the soil condition and surrounding, suitable with the building developed, to avoid any consequences due to not having seriousness in carried out a project such as not considering the aspects of uphill that needs to be examine before proceeding a building development. (Gul A, F., Islam R, M., Rahman W., 2017). Engineers and architectures need to take an account and aware the consequences onwards before building a project. If they did not apply the best steps taken based on the surrounding environment such as the soil and drainage system, it will lead to collapse of the building and hence affect the lives of the people as well as the nature. On this case of study, the architecture was not having a thought of the implications of not implementing a support and resistance of the rubble wall, as well as the engineer, did not use the approved design of the drainage scheme, constructed a foundation to accommodate the lateral loads of landslides as well as not signing the documents before qualifications on errors and inaccuracies have been made (Syahid, S., Mun, C, Y., Loong, K, G., Jarni, A, F., Sha’ari, H, I., n.d.). After the tragic incident, Malaysia set up their own rescue team since the day of rescuing the survivors of Highland Towers need to be helped by the other foreign rescue team from Singapore, Japan, France, UK and US (SCDF, 2019). Besides, the cabinet has decided to stop immediately the all tall building projects approved in the hills until a new policy is approved (Syahid, S., Mun, C, Y., Loong, K, G., Jarni, A, F., Sha’ari, H, I., n.d.). Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission need to strictly weed out the corrupt officers in local authorities to avoid any incident happen due to human errors, that can be avoided from the earlier phase of construction if they took fully responsibility and awareness.

Conclusion It is been nearly 27 years since the Highland Towers collapsed that haunts Malaysia especially the survivors for many years to come. It can be concluded that this tragedy is 100% can be blamed to the developers, contractors, engineers and architecture that responsible in managing this project. The building of Highland Tower that consists of 120-storey building can be categorised as high-rise building especially it was located on the uphill with the presence of a stream. They should not be neglected the law that need to be parallel for the uses of people and environment. Both the professional body of engineers and architects owe an expert obligation to people in general and their profession need to be practices in accord with ethical standards. Clients and public put their trust in these profession bodies of their competence and skills of their knowledge and experts in constructing a better infrastructure for the uses of the public. The responsible public authorities must be ensured that no similar tragedy reoccurs in the future. Overall, all parties must play they role for not being greedy for profit that only benefits some people while most of the people have put their life in a dangerous situation. This incident should be reminded as it reflects Malaysia for having poor ethics in the professional organizations.

References Gul A, F., Islam R, M., Rahman W. (2017). “Highland Towers Collapsed”, The Tragic Story of Malaysia!. International Journal for Research in Social Science and Humanities Kazmi, D., Qasim, S., Harahap, I., & Baharom, S. (2017). Landslide of Highland Towers 1993: a case study of Malaysia. Innovative Infrastructure Solutions , 2(1), 1-9. doi: 10.1007/s41062-0170069-4 Law of Malaysia. (2006). Act 385: LAND CONSERVATION ACT 1960, Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad, Kuala Lumpur, retrieved from https://www.jkptg.gov.my/images/pdf/perundangantanah/Act_385-land_conserve.pdf Nazri F. (2006). The Highland Towers’ Decisions – The Guardian or the Guarded?. Jurnal Undang-

Undang. 95(2), 145-163. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/16280-1225-322361-10-20190115.pdf Rojak Daily. (2018). 26 Years On: The Day the Highland Tower Collapsed. Retrieved from https://rojakdaily.com/news/article/4024/24-years-on-the-day-the-highland-tower-collapsed SCDF. (2019). Highland Towers Collapse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1993). Retrieved from https://www.scdf.gov.sg/home/about-us/media-room/overseas-missions/highland-towerscollapse-in-kuala-lumpur-malaysia-(1993)# Sew-S, G., Wai-S, C. (2017). Geotechnical Challenges in Slope Engineering of Infrastructures. Retrieved from https://gnpgroup.com.my/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2008_04.pdf Thiagarajan T. (2018). It’s Been 25 Years Highland Towers Collapsed but It Won’t be Redeveloped Just Yet, retrieved from https://worldofbuzz.com/its-been-25-years-since-highland-towerscollapsed-but-wont-be-redeveloped-just-yet/ Ujang A. (2020).

The Sun Daily: Learn from Highland Towers Tragedy. Retrieved from

https://www.thesundaily.my/opinion/learn-from-highland-towers-tragedy-ID2511820...