Singing the rail blues

Blue skies, blue-r wall

I ride along Pinggir Zaaba in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, where work on the rail transit project rages on despite the pleas and cries of the residents, and I see this Great Wall of Blue, erected as if as a direct affront to the residents who have made life difficult for them. Man, if I were living in one of those houses, I'd be singing the blues, too! 

The residents, as we all know, are suing the company building the project. The  company, as we also know, is basically the Government of Malaysia. Messy. If rakyat didahulukan, it wouldn't have come to this, you think? I don't know, but I hear the residents are making a representation to the newly-reelected MP from the Oppositionj (they were engaging the BN-Gerakan lady before she lost at the PRU13) and the new Minister in charge of urban well-being. Well, good luck, we'll see what comes out of that, if any. 

In the meantime, another victim (LRT, not MRT but ...) ... 

Family of LRT site crane accident victim seeks answers

By AUSTIN CAMOENS
austin@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: For the past three years, A. Vijayasingam drove every day from Kampung Pandan to work near Ara Damansara without any incident until last Friday.

That day, Vijayasingam's Hyundai Sonata was caught in rush hour traffic along Jalan Lapangan Terbang Subang when a 10-tonne construction equipment hoisted by a crane at an LRT extension site nearby fell and crushed his car.

The development executive was killed instantly in the freak accident while another driver, Arifpuddin Mansoruddin, 42, in a Nissan Frontier, was injured.

Vijayasingam's family is finding it difficult to come to terms with his sudden death and wants answers to how such an accident could have happened.

His brother-in-law Jai Ganesh, 36, said Vijayasingam had travelled along that route daily from his home in Kampung Pandan to get to work near Ara Damansara.

“My brother-in-law was a good and responsible man. It is hard for us to accept this,” he said, adding that Vijayasingam's wife was grief-stricken by the tragedy.

“She's inconsolable,” he said, adding that the construction company should have assured the safety of all motorists travelling on that particular stretch of road.

“The family is looking at the possibility of taking legal action against the construction company,” he said, adding that Vijayasingam's funeral and cremation were held at around 10am yesterday.

Later, during a visit to Vijayasingam's family by Prasarana senior officials, its group director for infrastructure services Masnizam Hisham described the incident as “truly unfortunate”.

“We came to offer our condolences and extend a helping hand to the family,” she said.

Petaling Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Arjunaidi Mohamed said they were investigating the case from several angles, adding that so far, no criminal element had been found.

p.s. Too many companies take safety for granted these days. The HR Ministry ought to come down hard on them. Like really hard. I don't think the cranes in the pictures below will fall on any of the Pinggir Zaaba's resident's head, but the residents think there's an accident waiting to happen. 

Several break-ins after work started, say residents

An accident waiting to happen