Thursday, December 25, 2008

Cable Cars




I was visiting Singapore in 1983 from New Zealand. An accident happened. I vowed that I would never go into a cable car. However almost twenty years later, my kids and a friend from New Zealand, coaxed me to go on one.

"Come on mum," so I went from the Mt Faber Side of mainland Singapore to the tourist Island Sentosa. The ride was uneventful, but it wasn't interesting either. I guess, the next time I go inside will be, "Come-on grandma."

An accident on the Singapore Cable Car system occurred at about 6 p.m. on 29 January 1983, when the derrick of the Eniwetok, a Panamanian-registered oil rig, passed under the aerial ropeway and struck the cable that stretched over the waterway between the Jardine Steps Station and the Sentosa Station. As a result, two cabins plunged 55 metres into the sea, killing seven people. The oil rig was being towed away from Keppel Wharf when it became entangled in the cable and caused it to snap. It also left 13 people trapped in four other cabins between Mount Faber and Sentosa. The accident was the first involving death or injury since the cable car system opened in February 1974.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Cable_Car_disaster

***These pix were taken by an engineer's daughter when she went to Hong Kong. I don't know why we didn't take a pix of us in the Singapore cable car. May be I was too afraid.****

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