JUNIOR COLLEGE COLLAPSES AFTER 23 YEARS
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The Straits Times 30 September 1999
JUNIOR COLLEGE COLLAPSES AFTER 23 YEARS
The Anglo-Chinese Junior College, located at Dover Close East, lay in a pileof rubble yesterday, after the grand structure of 23 years came crashing down during morning assembly amidst the singing of the National Athem. A total of 122 casualties were reported, most of whom were students who were crushed when the toilets on the second level collapsed, leaving the largest lecture theatre on the third level to crumble in a large cloud of dust accumulated in the past decades.
Civil Defence officers arrived promptly at the scene, along with official from the Ministry of Education and various government departments which were involved in the construction of the College more than two decades ago.
Mr Lenn, the vice-principal of the college and long serving teacher said, "We didn't expect it to cave in on us today. It was really a down-to-earth experience, and a tragic loss for all of us. We lost a good deal worth of government equipment." He declined to comment on how there were 122 students located in the level two toilets during morning assembly, at which every student is expected to attend. He also declined to answer exactly how much equipment belonging the college itself was lost, only saying that, "We've developed a strong emotional attachment to the facilities and building itself in the many years that the college has served us."
Mrs Lim Han Soon, who has been principal of the school for the past two years, attempted to explain the cause of the collapse, "I donch know what these students do sometimes. By having 122 students in the toilets the ground is sure to collapse."
The student leading the school in the anthem, requesting to remain anonymous except for saying that he was a year one student studying at the currently-levelled college, offered the most logical explanation. He said, "The college has been undergoing ground works at the car park recently, which may have caused a shift in the foundation, leading to the collapse of the school.
"In addition to that, the heavy downpour yesterday morning flooded most of the classrooms. With the kind of structural integrity ACJC has, I wont be surprised if officials say that water seeping into the crevices of the chipped concrete actually might have further eroded the walls or concrete flooring." When asked if his singing could also have played a part in the tragedy, he could only raise his hands in frustration, "With the kind of audio system we have, any singer could bring the school down."
Structural integrity was the key-phrase at the press conference held at the ACJC Sports Complex later in the morning, as a panel of investigators and architects explained to a large group of journalists the main reason behind the fall of the college. "Apparently the gaping holes in the walls were not reported to the ministry earlier, and thus we were unable to gauge that the structural integrity of the main block of ACJC was far from sound. With the extra cabling involving the installation of fibre optic cables and a host of other inclusions such as ten-thousand dollar projectors, we never knew that the building could not take the massive drilling underground and around the building." said Mr Con Structor, who is the chief investigator at the site.
A furious parent of a deceased student accused the Ministry of Education of overcrowding the junior college with many more students than logically possible in ACJC, saying, "Twenty years ago there only 600 students in the college, and in recent years this number has grown to more than 1800. With the kind of sub-standard facilities that my child has been studying in, how could anyone expect the building to stand any longer?" Mr Lenn was to point out that this was not the case, as the ACJC Sports Complex was still standing and was also considered 'part of the college'. Massive salvage operations have been carried out in the past 12 hours, with excavators from a nearby construction site situated at Buona Vista MRT Station being brought in to remove the massive amounts of rubble. Emergency operations were also carried out to remove the initial 5m layer of dust covering the building, using high powered vacuum cleaners. Salvaged so far was a Neoprint machine, a tub of Cremo ice-cream, an ACJC umbrella, and a pair of ACJC bears.
Upon being questioned that a bomb might have been set off in the toilets instead, the investigative panel quoted that this could have been the case, except that the only way in which this could have happened was if there was a massive buildup of methane in the toilet at the second level, and that a spontaneous combustion could have triggered an explosion leading to the collapse.
As a result of the collapse, the Anglo-Chinese Junior College would be temporarily relocated to Raffles Junior College, which is equipped with similar facilities but lacking in an Olympic-size swimming pool and a fully-fledged Sports Complex. In return, ACJC would loan it's Sports Complex to RJC till it shifts to Bishan, leaving ACJC to take full control of all its facilities in Ghim Moh.
Upon listening to the announcement that ACJC would share its premises with RJC and would eventually take over its campus there, a prominent Student Councillor from ACJC whispered, "Looks like we can shelve the upgrading plans after all, or perhaps we could help upgrade the campus in Ghim Moh instead..."
In the meantime, riots were reported to have broken out in RJC, when an ACJC student was involved in a scuffle with an RJC student. He had tried to put up the ACJC flag in place of the RJC flag at the flagpoles in RJC. This angered the Students' Council of RJC, and the situation was further aggravated when a roving band of ACJC students repainted the front gates of their college red, blue and gold. The students from Raffles retaliated, and attacked the band with grenades made in the chemistry labs.
A mass protest is expected tomorrow, when RJC students are expected to wear ACJC uniforms to school.
COPYRIGHT (C) SEPTEMBER 1999 ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY ARE FICTIONAL, AND EVERY ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO ENSURE THAT THIS INCIDENT IS INDEED JUST A FIGMENT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO LIVING PERSONS OR STANDING BUILDINGS * AND ORGANIZATIONS IS MERELY A FAULT OF THE MIND, AND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
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So its reel!
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Err. Its 1999 news?
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haha
i recieved this email in my mailbox, way back in 99
damn funny, but i guess u got to be an ACJC student way back then to understand some of the jokes
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LOL :D
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wah fcuk , i just wasted a few minutes reading it just to find that it's fake
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so farnie...
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Why is this quek thread on front page? SGF need QC..
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lol.......
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hahahaha ! grenades from chem lab.
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u want to up ratings u must have hong dong news
like, fifi had sex with lau
or
fifi c liao, wake is tomorrow
u noe
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fifi, lau ren and gacky engage in hot choochootrain action in ACJC toilet back in 1999, causing the building to collapse
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I want to know the sex scandal one.
Death nvm.. leave it to the obituary section of nudepapers.
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Originally posted by FireIce:
fifi, lau ren and gacky engage in hot choochootrain action in ACJC toilet back in 1999, causing the building to collapse
Wah.. got 2 pedos wor.. so er xin.. -
WTF 122 students in the toilets
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i think i was in JC1, gacky in Sec 1
wah
abit too much leh
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haha that means you're 25 years old huh laurence.
I caught this bluff at the start of the thread when it said "30 September 1999"
because such an incident to an elite JC would definitely echo and be often spoken about in singapore till this day. And I've never heard of such a thing.
I wonder how many swaku people read the entire damn thing only to realise that theyve been busted.
hehe but a creative and original hoax. worth the read.
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are u just trying to say u are bery de smart?
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i swear i never stalk lao da in sch!!!
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lao da's batch got one guy damn high profile one
i think is famous for all the bad things
his name is Andy
U got hear before or not -
sounds familiar sia
issit the Andy who drives his convertible around sch and nearly knock down the pregnant teacher??
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er gee, thats just a figurative statement not being matter of fact. Its more that people are oblivious to certain details and get all exasperated for nothing, nothing to do with academic intelligence.
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Originally posted by laurence82:
sounds familiar sia
issit the Andy who drives his convertible around sch and nearly knock down the pregnant teacher??
u rber the surname?
if u can tell me the surname then i know we toking abt the right one liao