Tan Yew Guan, Channel NewsAsia 23 Apr 09;
SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) says a tropical storm is the reason for the strong winds which blew into Singapore Wednesday night.
A wind speed of up to 83 kilometres per hour was recorded -- the strongest in nearly nine years.
Among the damage caused - fallen trees and a broken construction crane.
Residents of private condominium Abelia woke up to find their Ardmore Park neighbourhood, near Shangri La Hotel, behind police lines.
A construction crane at a neighbouring building had snapped into two, with most of it dangling precariously from the 30th floor.
Police say a lifting kit connected to the crane was found along the road. No one was injured.
But the Manpower Ministry has stopped work at the site while it figures out how to safely recover the crane.
It is investigating the incident, which has also attracted the attention of other builders nearby.
Tan Heok Ngee Benjamin, Project Manager, C@nspecs Pte Ltd, said: "This crane is commonly used in a lot of construction sites. So if some problem happens here, we want to see if there is anything we can do to prevent this from happening."
Officials from the building company involved, Poh Lian Construction, were tight-lipped about the incident.
Like many others across the island, residents in the neighbourhood say they experienced unusually strong winds last night.
The winds also wreaked havoc elsewhere across Singapore last night.
The NEA says the strong winds were caused by a Sumatra squall, named as such because the storm usually develops overnight in Sumatra and the Strait of Malacca, before sweeping into Singapore between midnight and daybreak.
NEA says such storms usually occur between April and September.
For the rest of the month, we can expect another one or two Sumatra squalls, but they are unlikely to be as severe as the one on Wednesday night.- CNA/yt
Gusty winds and rain wreak havoc
Trees felled by 83kmh squall cause damage to cars and property
Amresh Gunasingham & Alessa Pang, Straits Times 24 Apr 09;
STRONG gusty winds accompanied by rain wreaked havoc on many parts of Singapore on Wednesday night.
The police received more than 400 calls about traffic obstructions and other damage to cars and property caused by fallen trees.
Officers from the National Parks Board (NParks) worked through the night to remove the debris from roads and other places.
The strong winds were caused by an unusually intense Sumatra squall, said the Meteorological Services Division of the National Environment Agency (NEA) yesterday - that is, a line of blustery thunderstorms that develop over Sumatra and the Malacca Strait at this time of year and which move in over the west coast of Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia.
But the top wind speed recorded on Wednesday night - 83kmh in western Singapore - was four times the average experienced in the Republic on any given day.
On average, wind speeds of 33kmh to 54kmh were recorded on various parts of the island between 11pm and 12.30am.
Rainfall was light over many areas, with the highest level of 7mm recorded in Sembawang.
The sudden storm caught many on the roads by surprise.
Estate officer Bernard Ng, 35, was driving home along Yio Chu Kang Road when it struck.
'It felt like a mini-typhoon,' he said. 'I saw many trees fall along the way.'
Up in his sixth-storey flat in Bishan, Mr Mohamed Seraj, a 23-year-old full-time national serviceman, watched as leaves and plastic bags were carried in from the ground floor by the wind.
The Sumatra squall can strike up to three times a month during the south-west monsoon season between March and November. But it is generally more common towards September, so Wednesday's storm was a little early, said Associate Professor Matthias Roth of the geography department at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
In total, 27 fallen trees and 150 branches were removed from various locations on Wednesday night, said NParks director of streetscape Simon Longman.
'Our officers worked through the night,' he said.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force also received calls for help when two members of the public on Balestier Road and Toa Payoh Lorong8 were injured by fallen trees. The injuries were minor and neither had to be hospitalised.
Across the island, people took stock of the damage wrought by the brief storm.
Ms Fen Chong, 25, an administrative coordinator, saw a large tree branch fall across two cars near her home in St George's Road, shattering the windscreens.
According to the NEA, one or two Sumatra squalls can be expected over the next week. But they are not likely to be as severe as this one.
Professor Lim Hock, founding director of Temasek Laboratories at NUS said Sumatra squalls usually hit Singapore in the early hours of the morning, bringing with them strong gusts of wind, heavy showers and thunderstorms.
For updated weather forecasts for the next 12 hours, visit the NEA website at http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=1093
Wild wind wreaks havoc
Sumatran squall tears up trees around the island, NEA expects one ortwo more this month
Esther Ng and Neo Chai Chin Today Online 24 Apr 09;
THE calls began flooding in a little after 11pm on Wednesday — of trees being uprooted or their branches snapped and strewn on roads, roadwork barriers being dislodged and even a construction crane that was left dangling atop an unfinished building.
The culprit responsible for this widespread damage: One feisty Sumatran squall.
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), these thunderstorms usually occur between April and September.
For 90 minutes from 11pm on Wednesday to early Thursday, mean wind speeds ranging from 33kmh to54 kmh were recorded across the island. The highest wind speed logged was83 kmh in the west — the strongest in nearly nine years.
All in all, the police received more than 400 calls because of the gale, and the National Parks Board cleared 27 fallen trees and about 150 fallen branches.
One or two such Sumatran squalls are expected for the rest of the month, but they are unlikely to be as strong as the one that lashed the island two nights ago, the NEA said.
Yesterday, motorists on the PanIsland Expressway near Ardmore Road found themselves stuck in a massive traffic jam during the morning rush-hour.
A crane on top of an uncompleted condominium near Ardmore Park had snapped and a part of the boom was left twisting in the wind. Dangling ominously by the side of the building, it looked like it could crash to the ground at any moment and the roads around the area had to be cordoned off.
The Ministry of Manpower, which oversees workplace safety, could not confirm if it was the wind that caused the crane to snap, but it immediately issued a stop-work order. No one was hurt in the incident.
Mr Chang Long Yew, an engineer who lives on the 12th floor of a block in Jurong East, said wind speeds picked up suddenly at around 11.20pm on Wednesday.
“Trees were swinging very badly and some large branches from one tree fell on an overhead bridge and onto the road,” he recounted.
Mrs Alice Yap, a Toa Payoh resident, was sleeping at the time, but her husband was “watching television when he heard a loud boom — like the ceiling was falling”, she said.
“It turned out that two to three pieces — about the size of a door — of asbestos-like material had fallen off a pillar,” said Mrs Yap.
Over in Woodlands, businessman Tony Liau said his remote control, telephone and cups were blown off the table of his sixth-floor flat.
“We’ve lived here for over 10 years and it’s never happened before,” he said.
As Mr Liau went around his flat shutting windows, he saw his neighbours doing the same. Gingerly looking out their windows, they were all “wondering why the winds were so strong”.
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