Monday, December 16, 2013

Highland Towers Behind The Lens

This story appeared in The Star, Malaysia on 15 December 2013.

More detail on the tragedy:

Highland Towers Tragedy, 20 Years On

6 comments:

shankar~selina said...

Perhaps a reprint of the photos should refresh the current developers about the dangers of hill side buildings..

cy.leow said...

Jeff Ooi, my good friend and my political hero via Facebook:

"You are my hero, man! And your experience covering the air-crash in Phuket in with bad telecommunication system then... to beat deadline!"

cy.leow said...

Antonia Kokalova-Gray via Facebook: "I had never heard of that event, how awful!"

Charles Chan, ex News Editor of The Star, via Facebook: "Reading this is a walk down an unpleasant memory lane for me. I was with The Star at the time of the collapse and my involvement was mainly to guide the reporters in their coverage of the tragedy. I did a huge amount of rewrites. I must say our reporters and photographers did a great job. Ann Edwards and Loong Meng Yee truly proved themselves."

John Santiago, ex Star reporter, via Facebook: "I will remember the Highland Towers tragedy as long as I live. I lost my childhood friend and classmate of my primary school days, Ong Yong. We both studied at the Government English School, Kampong Kuantan, near Kuala Selangor. We both earned double promotion to be promoted from Special English Class I(primary 2) to Special Malay Class I (primary 4). Then both came to KL to pursue our studies. I went to High Street Secondary Modern School and Ong Yong went to Maxwell Road Secondary Modern School - the only two schools of its kind at that time with a similar curriculum. We lost touch after that. Ong Yong ended up as the school's captain and went on to MU and was graduated with a B.Sc degree. He and his whole family perished when the Tower collapsed."

Bea Chia via Facebook: "Cy Leow, no wonder you take amazing photos!"

cy.leow said...

Martin Hunter, ex colleague; news photographer extraordinaire commented by email:
"Hi CY
Hope you are all well, I bet that brings back a lot of great memories for the master.

I hope you had a monopod holding up that 600mm & 2X !!!!

But then only you would do that and still get sharp pictures, where I would just get a taxis to get closer." ;)

cy.leow said...

Ooi Chin Hooi, Group Managing Director / CEO of The Star,via Facebook: "Well done!"

cy.leow said...

Heather Newby,colleague; via email:
"good article.Horrible thing to happen. I remember when it happened!"