The Straits Times Blogs - Carolyn Quek

Bangkok tragedy hits home

2009-01-05T01:03:00Z

Carolyn Quek describes the atmosphere as relatives identify victims.

In Bangkok

IT IS the same scene over the past four days I visited the mortuary at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok, where most bodies of the Santika night club tragedy are kept, and more and more are being identified and claimed.

Outside, photos of the unidentified dead are slowly taken off - one by one - as soon as it is established who's who.

Scores of relatives line up outside the mortuary office for updates or to settle administrative matters; others cry in anguish as their dead loved one is transferred into a coffin and last rites performed.

A majority of these relatives are Thai, but two sets of Singaporean friends have also been seen there in the past two days.

They have been hoping against hope that Mr Lu Weiye and Mr Leslie Yeo would be alive.

They had searched through forensic photographs in the hope that something familiar would show up.

Their search was finally put to an end on Sunday, though it was not the way they would have wanted it to be,

The two men were positively identified through DNA tests and will assist the families of these men when they reach Bangkok today.

The suddenness of the tragedy has left the families and loved ones of the victims in shock, denial and in need of answers.

A bereaved mother of a 28-year-old Thai victim in the Bangkok nightclub tragedy told me she sought the help of a famous fortune teller to find out what had happened and to ask those still missing to "get out of the club".

Her son was among a group of seven friends that had hit the Santika night club that night; Mr Lu was one of them.

The families and loved ones of these victims must get their answers - not through fortune tellers, but from those responsible for the club.

The tragedy is senseless and preventable, and should never happen again.

And as much as the friends and relatives of Mr Lu and Mr Yeo were hoping that they had gotten out of the club safely, it wasn't to be.

Now, another two bodies will be flown back to Singapore in coffins.

A nightmare of a rescue

2008-12-26T09:11:00Z

Carolyn Quek re-lives the traumatic rescue of those trapped on the Flyer.

FOR those at the Singapore Flyer looking on from the ground, the sight of passengers being winched down from the capsules certainly was surreal, like a scene from a disaster movie.

But for those trapped inside the cabins, it was their worst nightmare come true.

One passenger, a 42-year-old Singaporean I spoke to via mobile phone, described the mood inside his cabin in one word: Fear.

Trapped at least 12 storeys above the ground, he said he may have been the army in his time, but there was no way he was going to abseil down.

Then there was the husband of a 75-year-old elderly woman who was so worried he could not eat his dinner. Also 75, he was dead set against his wife being lowered to safety that way.

"I rather her stay inside there until they get the wheel moving again," he said.

In all, 11 brave souls went through the three-minute ordeal that night - and the public got to share the moment with the last six who were rappelled down from a location more visible than the first five.

Each time one was brought to safety, the crowd of worried family members, members of the public and journalists errupted in cheers and applause.

Many of us were horrified enough to imagine being trapped inside the Singapore Flyer for more than six hours, but to be rescued in that manner must have been even more traumatic.

Fingers crossed; such an event won't happen again. But hopefully if it comes to that in future, more considerate measures will then be in place to rescues those who do not - and can not - be brought to safety in that way.

A wake fit for a princess

2008-12-01T11:10:00Z

Our reporters describe the farewell for Singapore's Mumbai victim.

By Carolyn Quek and Teh Joo Lin

IT WAS a hastily-arranged wake.

At about 5.30pm yesterday, when Lo Hwei Yen’s body reached her family home at Lower Delta Road, the florist was still busy arranging pastel flowers that that would line the pathway to where the wake was held.

Shortly before that, chairs and tables that visitors would sit on were transported to the site.

But when the finishing touches were all completed by nightfall, part of the open-air carpark below her Teresa Ville block was transformed into a “party” fit for a princess.

Princess was the 28-year-old lawyer’s nickname, friends said.

It looked like no expense was spared - relatives and loved ones who visited the wake were housed inside an air-conditioned white marquee that would keep them away from mosquitos buzzing outside.

Attention was paid to detail as well.

Jazz music – her favourite type – also played softly inside the tent.

Adding a feminine touch were strands of pearls that hung from the 30 or so beautiful displays of white orchids, spider chrysanthemums and brassicas lining the entrance and inside of the tent.

Each display cost about $100, the florist said.

Bouquets of condolence flowers trickle in continuously
during Mdm Lo Hwei Yen's wake along Lower Delta Road.
ST photo: Ng Sor Luan

Close friends of Ms Lo also turned up in black party dresses; they had been informed via Facebook to turn up in their glamorous best.

“Yen loves glamour. She is the glamour of every party. 'This is the last one we are having with her. And we want it to be a beautiful one - the way she would have wanted,” the Facebook message stated.

Indeed, Ms Lo had led a beautiful existence until terrorism reared its ugly head, cutting short a life way before its time.

The 28-year-old had been held hostage last Wednesday night in the five-star Mumbai hotel she had checked into mere hours before.

During her hours there, the accomplished lawyer had just finished delivering a talk at a seminar, and was also having dinner when armed terrorists barged into the hotel.

Throughout the past few days, intense media scrutiny homed in on Ms Lo’s family as her status changed from unharmed to unknown, and then dead.

But despite having to deal with the horror of her death, the family has understood the public interest in this matter and the public grief.

Through it all, her two younger sisters have taken it upon themselves to front all media queries and were prepared to share her life with concerned strangers.

Today, more wreaths lined the driveway leading to the wake. Condominium staff fretted over the availability of parking lots. The media remained.

They are waiting to see who turns up and for the time that Ms Lo’s husband, Michael Puhaindran, will be ready for words.

Mr Puhaindran, whom friends said was deeply in love with his wife, is still terribly devastated by her death.

At the wake on Sunday, a projection screen was put up showing
pictures of the 28-year-old lawyer with her husband, family
and friends.
ST photos: Jamie Koh

She had contacted him after she was taken hostage. Soon after, he flew up to Mumbai. He was also the one who broke the news to her loved ones back home.

Yesterday, he flew back with his wife’s body, which arrived at her family home in Teresa Ville.

Driving into the condominium compound in a champagne Mercedes, the husband looked a broken man.

“No one should go through what he had to go through,” his sister-in-law Hwei Shan said.

One year on, the pain still remains

2008-11-23T22:00:00Z

Carolyn Quek looks at questions lingering from the dragon boat tragedy.

YESTERDAY marked the first death anniversaries of the five rowers who died tragically in last year’s Cambodian dragon boat accident.

As family and loved ones held a commermorative service to remember the five men, several questions remain.

For example, was the welfare of survivors and their parents being overlooked?

Ms Pamela Seeto, mother of one of the survivors, thinks so.

The housewife still remembers Nov 24, 2007 - the day her friend came knocking on her door, asking her to read the newspapers.

"When I saw the headline, five dragon boaters missing... I went screaming and crying," the housewife, who is in her 50s, recalls as she spoke to reporters at the memorial service.

Her younger son, Darren Tan, now a 21-year-old first year undergraduate, was one of the 22 rowers representing Singapore in a traditional boat race in Cambodia.

There had been no calls or messages from him and she started to panic.

"Then I realised I had turned off my handphone," Ms Seeto recounted.

Switching on her mobile, she heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that Mr Tan had sent her a text message at 9.08pm - Ms Seeto can remember the time precisely.

It was also a few hours after his team mates went missing in the Tonle Sap River.

The families of the survivors too have been through a lot, given that the surviving men had also had near-death experiences.

Ms Seeto felt however that follow-ups on the part of the survivors and families after they returned was not enough.

She cited how the parents of the survivors were not invited to a closed-door briefing about the Safety Inquiry Panel report when it was released at the end of May.

The panel was set up in the wake of the accident and had met only with the families of the rowers who had died.

But Ms Seeto felt it should have been extended to parents like herself. After all, their sons were involved in the same accident, and their families had a right to know how their safety had been compromised.

Also, besides a few group counselling sessions that the survivors received on their return to Singapore, the survivors have been largely left alone, she said.

One year on, the hurt also continues to run deep for the families of the five rowers.

Differences, it seems, remain unresolved between the families and the Singapore Dragon Boat Association (SBDA).

While they had called for a press conference in July to ask for an apology from the SBDA, the association had responded a few days later by saying that it was not going to do as as it was found not responsible for the accident by the SI panel.

But family members at the memorial service pointed out, it was not under the safety panel's purview in the first place to pinpoint who was responsible for the tragedy.

At a regatta also held yesterday, the parents had also noted that there was no minute's silence observed for their boys.

There were no obituaries placed by the association to mark the one-year anniversary of the rowers.

It led the families to wonder, had the SBDA forgotten about the five men?

But the families clearly have not forgotten about the men, as they sought to commemorate their lives at the emotionally-charged memorial service.

The sobbing younger brother of Mr Chee Wei Cheng was the first to take the stage.

"This one year has been very hard for me and especially my mother," Wei You told those who had gathered at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Jurong East.

"He was our life... without him, our lives are so empty."

A 15-year-old's stoic grief

2008-10-03T12:21:00Z

Carolyn Quek says the teen survivor of the Yishun triple murder showed courage at her mother's wake.

THE funeral on Thursday of 36-year-old study mama Ms Yang Jie marked a closure of sorts to the intense media interest that had flowed since her death on September 19th.

Then, police, media and interested onlookers had descended upon Block 349 Yishun Street 11 in the early hours of the morning where her body lay face-down near a rubbish chute of the block.

We were to find out over the course of the next two weeks, that she was a 36-year-old mother of two from Shenyang, China.

Ten months ago, she was like many study mamas before - She left everything she had back home, to quietly work behind the scenes here to ensure her 15-year-old daughter was comfortable in their new home in Singapore.

With her funeral at Mandai Crematorium on Thursday, the intense media scrutiny has eased – at least until the trial of the man accused of killing her flatmates and injuring her daughter gets underway.

With few friends in here, her funeral was not attended by many – there were almost as many journalists as there were family members and friends who turned up.

Relatives who had flown in from China, waited quietly and politely for Ms Yang's daughter’s school principal and vice-principal to arrive before starting the Buddhist service. But throughout the service emotions ran high, with relatives, including her current and ex-husband, united in their grief.

Most poignant was the presence of her young daughter, who had been brought from hospital to attend her mother’s funeral - the first time the girl had been seen publicly since her mother’s death.

The sight of her slight frame sitting in a wheelchair, arm in a sling, and face masked to hide her own injuries, was a touching sight.

But the girl stayed strong, barely shifting in her wheelchair, and showing little emotion, while her relatives cried openly at their loss.

The student's stoic composure was even more remarkable given she had lost not only her mother, but also her right eye and almost her right ear in the attack.

Ms Yang's second and current husband Mr Chen Jun summed up the mood of all those present.

'We are very heartbroken....we did not expect this to happen.'

In a short eulogy he also paid tribute to his wife's “simple life” and singleminded desire to see her 15-year-old daughter receive a good education.
“Everything she did was for her daughter... but her life was unexpectedly cut short,” he said.
But it was the teen's courage that struck a chord with reporters.

In spite of her trauma, the 15-year-old has told her grandmother she wishes to stay in Singapore to fulfil her mother’s dream of giving her a good education.