Xfresh Archive: True Tragic Tale

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Considering that this is the ghost month on the Chinese calendar let me tell you a true tragic story, one that I've experienced first hand. It's still hard for me to recount it, but for this blog and hoping that you'll be careful, I'm going to tell it. If you think that this story is based on anyone you know, please understand that I have no intention of disturbing old memories.

When I was in secondary school, year 2000 or so, I was a member of the Red Crescent Society. Once we took an inter-school camping trip to Bukit Cahaya to compete against other schools during the first year or so of the new badge reward system. We were there for the jungle experience and to keep our school's winning track record and that sort of stuff. Everybody was very excited and for many it's their first time camping away from families.

The first day was tough and yet most fun. On the third day, there was a round of practise foot drill so intense that the phrase 'break a leg' before the actual test tomorrow seems like not a bad idea. Members who did not participate in the foot drill competition, or had already won previously, were left behind to maintaining the camps.

One school had accidentally broken the PVC pipe buried in the earth with a shovel, which, unfortunately, had been supplying water to our campsite. It was my job to fetch water so even after the jelly-legs pain, a fetching-I-will-go-and-obey-my-SC. I took a route to a different tap that was very near to a Sunway school campsite. There was a line there already.

Suddenly, there was this huge crash and yellow smoke covered the Sunway camp. If I can remember correctly, it sounded like a wave colliding into a rock wall at the seaside. The others who were waiting at the tap water pipe with their pails ran off, but I had been looking the other way. When I turned to follow the smoke, I saw flying leaves and a long trunk across the Sunway camp. People were crowding around, running away and the running back, so I couldn't really tell.

Suddenly there were whistles everywhere, the kind that police used. A leader caught me and asked which school I was from and that I go back immediately. I was more blur than scared cos I didn't know what actually happened. I complied anyway, but not before taking the advantage of quickly getting water. Once I got back, the SCs were already doing a head count.

Then an order was issued that everybody was to get to the main area right away. And everybody did. Nobody got in line and no leader bothered to correct us, which I found was very odd. A girl behind me I remembered was from the Sunway camp and she was commenting about some broken glasses and that she couldn't find her friend.

There was supposed to be a performance night but everybody's attention kept going at the two ambulances just on the edge of the main area. Despite the cheering claps and singing, I kept looking at the people going back and forth between the camps and the roads. Then, somebody screamed. I looked and saw a stretcher covered in white cloth, the kind that you see on 911 when somebody had died. One of the leaders had his shirt unnaturally red.

Nobody returned to the camps that night. We all were ushered to these empty wooden houses that God knows who owns them but we're grateful. The girl who was complaining about her glasses had stayed in the same wooden hut as mine. She still couldn't find her friend and was getting anxious. We were sent home the very next day, our bags packed and the competition cancelled. Nobody could tell us anything.

It wasn't until in a tiny section of Star newspaper is an article about the death of 2 Sunway students at Bukit Cahaya. A tree had fallen right on their heads and they were killed instantly. I can't remember if there was a third student involved. But it did happened. A few days later in the Utusan, a parent had written angrily about how inefficient the commanders were. It was heart-breaking, even after so long...

Signed: *Ophie, never wanted to return to Bukit Cahaya since then