Traffic during the past one week has been so very hectic here in Penang. It has been a while since I experienced such congestion on the island and it took a bit of streetwise knowledge to use the minor roads and evade the jams.
Living on the mainland has not spared anyone too, especially if you live in Bukit Mertajam. Yesterday was the climax of the annual St Anne’s festival.
For the past 10 days or so, pilgrims have been making nightly visits to the church but yesterday, as I returned from Penang in the afternoon, the roads leading to the church were already full of traffic. Tour buses with registration plates from Malacca, Johor and even Singapore were parked on both sides of the road.
My house is in one of the Tamans across the road from the St Anne’s Church — quite a distance away, actually — but the road closures in front of the church affected everyone that needed to use the Kulim Road. It is a main artery in the town.
Early this morning, my son ran on the Penang Bridge. Well, not across the whole length of the bridge but his route took him to just before the ascent to the mid-span before turning back. It was part of the Penang Bridge International Marathon 2006 and participants his age were only allowed to run the Suku Marathon — a 10km race which took him about 55 minutes to complete. Better than nothing, I told him. Take pride in your achievement and take it as a preliminary experience as you plan for next year’s longer run when he will be eligible for the full bridge run.
As usual, this event caused the Penang Bridge plus the roads leading to the bridge and the stretch in front of the University of Science Malaysia to shut. I can imagine the traffic congestion in George Town again, especially people using the ferry services as the alternative means to cross the channel.
Speaking of the ferry services, it so happens that tomorrow will be the 18th anniversary of the collapse of the Sultan Abdul Hamid ferry terminal in Penang.
What happened on 31 July 1988 was that Penang was experiencing two big religious festivals on the same day. On one hand, people were crossing from the island to the St Anne’s festival in Bukit Mertajam. On the other hand, people were also crossing from the mainland to witness the “once in 60 years” procession of the Goddess of Mercy from the Kuan Yin temple in Pitt Street.
It was a sea of humanity at the ferry terminal in Butterworth. Jam-packed from the car park to the Penang Port Commission (PPC) building and across the concrete walkway to the upper deck of the terminal. As far as I kew, there was absolutely no crowd control. Even if there was one initially, I guess the PPC had given up on it because the crowd was unexpected, unbelievable and unprecedented.
I was there with my father and my father-in-law. We arrived in Butterworth at about 3.30pm and were slowly being pushed forward by the crowd behind us. Somewhow, despite my father’s walking disability, he had managed to creep ahead of me until I couldn’t see him. Luckily my father-in-law was still beside me. People were all over on the upper deck, shoulder-to-shoulder and inching their way forward to pay for the ferry tickets.
All of a sudden, I felt a huge vibration and heard a loud whooshing sound as if an airplane had flown overhead. The upper deck had collapsed and it threw up a thick wall of accumulated dust and dirt. Cars were crushed by the wood, twisted steel and rubble, and what was supposed to be the interior of the terminal was now was a huge void of sky. Thirty-two people died and thousands were injured.
In the pandemonium, people ran back in the opposite direction. I was pushed against the wall. I asked my father-in-law to go back to the car but where was my father? I tried to force my way forward but could not see him. Was he safe? I didn’t know. The bridge staff kept pushing all of us back, saying the deck was unsafe. But where was my father? I couldn’t find him. I tried to go down to the ground floor but could not too. So all I could do was to return to the car park too and hope that he would be all right.
Soon, I saw him walking towards me, very much untouched physically but nevertheless shakened by the experience. Boy, never had I felt such relief in my heart. Later, he said that he had almost reached the turnstiles, so was very close to the edge. The turnstiles, in fact, prevented more people from surging forward and tumbling in.
In the months that followed this event, the newer ferry terminal was closed temporarily to vehicular traffic as the PPC converted the ferries to accommodate passenger traffic. That’s why until today, you still see people boarding the vehicular ferries to travel from Butterworth to the island and vice versa. The old Sultan Abdul Hamid terminal remains unused — a stark reminder of the tragedy that struck two religious festivities in Penang.
You can see four photos of the ferry terminal tragedy here. Warning: they may be a bit graphic for some people.