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Abstracts of essays; news; announcements; short takes.
About Me
- Yawning Bread Sampler
- This blog carries summary abstracts of Yawning Bread essays, with space for comments.
Here too are other tidbits that are too short for the main Yawning Bread site.
To email me, go to the main site.
Blog Archive
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2007
(161)
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January
(13)
- Performing law
- Renckens' wrenching idea
- Catholic adoption agencies demand exemption from s...
- Half of younger Singaporeans consider homosexualit...
- Saint Jack slays two myths
- The youthful and the idealistic: The University of...
- Sir, may I have the can please?
- Why non-violence is not mischief
- Temasek Holdings stews in familiar juice
- The eye that popped up from nowhere
- Man at faregate refutes creationism
- We are all collaborators now
- New Year fireworks
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January
(13)
Posts
9 comments:
Thank you YB for the pictures, it gives me a chance to see what Im missing.. :) Wish I was there!
Great pics. Missed the fireworks this year. Though your pics made it up. Happy New Year. Enjoy.
Hi Alex! Happy New Year!
What beautiful pictures - thank you for sharing them with us. I missed out the show again this year, so this is a good substitute.
Have a great 2007 ahead.
Whoa. Fantastic pictures. Thanks for sharing! I caught the last sparkle from the balcony of MOX.
The crowd control at this year's fireworks was dangerously inadequate. I was on the water side of Esplanade Theatres, which was (acceptably) crowd-controlled near the entrance from Esplanade Bridge which I later walked to. What is unacceptable is the lack of appropriate crowd control on Esplanade Bridge and at access points to the area. If there had been a sudden heavy rain or any other sudden event, there could have been a stampede with deaths. I did see one woman fall unconscious with no way for her companions to evacuate her. Some security did eventually respond, and I saw her carried away through an almost no-breathing-room crowd, very slowly of course. I did not see any well-planned evacuation route. I did not see any strategically placed ambulances. There were no police standing in easily seen high positions (like on pedestals) to observe the situations and communicate by radio. It was unacceptable. I did also notice two Cisco police officers in a fenced in box about halfway down the bridge, blocking about 75% of the way and creating a bottleneck. (I read on another blog that later on they extended their fence to cut off the whole roadway. This was stupid. Bridges should be blocked from the endpoints, not by fencing the middle.)
In short, I was very frightened. Such a situation could have been deadly. I'm sure that if criticised publicly, the police would report that their crowd control was appropriate and there were no problems. But I was there and I witnessed their incompetance firsthand. It was scary. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I hope that the girl is ok.
Perhaps the Singapore Police Force have been spending too much time learning how to clamp down on speakers without permits, instead of learning how to manage crowds.
Re Teck Soon's comment, it was the same in 2005/2006 when I was much closer to the Esplanade waterfront; that's why I didn't want to be there again this year.
Those who haven't been in such situations may think Teck Soon's no-breathing-room description exaggerated. It's not. I was caught in a similar situation at the Chinese New Year Eve Countdown 2005 in Chinatown. It was scary. I and my friend were stuck in massive crowd, with a density of maybe 5 persons per square metre (trying getting 50-60 friends to stand within a typical HDB bedroom to know how it feels). We couldn't move in any direction, and people were pressing against against each other in an attempt to even lift an arm.
The police were there all right, but they were all manning barricades to stop people from going this way or that.
Their job is to enforce rules, not to relieve pressure.
Hi YB, thanks for the pics. I have not been taking fireworks for a while as I can't figure out how to do it well using a digital cam. I guess you are using a digital SLR? I do think that some of the pics are a little over exposed. From my own experience of taking national day fireworks, I also realised that it's better to take at the beginning time, 'cos towards the end of fireworks, some time the smoke can get too thick and spoil the image. This year national day will be at the same place over a floating stage, can be really a different setting that worth taking.
Regarding crowd control, yes I also think our police is somehow inadequate to control crowd. My last experience in WP last rally in Serangoon Stadium was a very bad one. They did control number of ppl going in, by closing gate to a very narrow space so that at one time only one person can pass thr'. However, there wasn't any instruction or explanation thr' loudhailer so that ppl still rushing in and got stucked in the crowd knew what's going on, and probably decided to go away had they know the stadium is getting full, 'cos by our eyes the stadium was still far from full.
Dear Alex
I enjoyed YawningBread very much. I find your observations very enlightening.
Thanks for posting the pictures. Due to a family emergency, I missed the show completely and at least I can visualise the highlights of the evening.
Wow, very pretty. It was really unfortunate that I missed the fireworks this year. And you have pretty good photography skills. :)
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