WHEN he first heard a loud “bang” at around 11pm on Oct 12, Zulkarnain Othman, 77, thought the gas cylinder in his kitchen had exploded. But a check in his kitchen showed that all was fine.
That was when the former bus company chairman who moved to Sea Park, Petaling Jaya, in 1969, hurried over to his brother’s house next door to see if he was alright.
Zulkarnain’s brother Mohd Tawfike, 70, was fine.
Upon exiting his brother’s house on Jalan 21/9, Zulkarnain saw that the slope wall had collapsed, leaving a mess of earth, fallen trees and debris on the badminton court in their garden.
“Fortunately, it was the wall that fell and not my neighbour’s house,” he said.
“For six months, cracks had already appeared on the slope wall.
"Whenever the weather turns bad, the first thing I will do is to check the wall,” he said.
Zulkarnain worries that the house atop the slope would crash into his compound.
One of his neighbours, Erric Chew, 63, an architect, said he sensed something was amiss when he heard a loud boom that night.
During StarMetro’s visit to the site, two officers from Petaling Jaya City Council’s Engineering Department were also at the location.
A few hours later, a team was seen covering the slope with a tarpaulin to prevent further erosion.
Meanwhile, residents have asked a group of contractors to stop work on a monsoon drain project less than a kilometre away from the collapsed slope. The project, measuring about 190m long, is at the finishing stage and located behind a row of houses on Jalan 21/9.
Residents say they have felt strong vibrations from the project site for the last two weeks. Chew, whose office is on the first floor at Jalan 21/1, about 200m away, said he could feel the vibrations through his chair and tabletop.
Another resident, Wellington Ho, 77, a volunteer at Search and Rescue Dogs Malaysia, said construction work for upgrading the monsoon drain began in October 2023.
Ho, whose house is just beside the construction site, said the vibrations came from removing sheet piles embedded in the banks.
Since the project started, he said cracks had started appearing on the wall, drain, and floor at the back of his house.
Sarabmeet Singh, 30, who lived in the house atop the slope, said he and six other family members, including his mother and five-month-old niece, were at home when the slope wall collapsed. Following Bomba’s advice, the lawyer evacuated everyone on the same night.
The house is estimated to have been built 60 years ago.
