Assign relevant engineers to supervise construction work
NST 19/06/2006

I read your article about the "Death Trap Homes: Thousands living dangerously" in which your writer mentioned about landslides, weak soils and warning system.

In my opinion, failures could have been avoided if relevant engineers were assigned to work on the design and to supervise construction. These failures are typical geotechnical problems.

Geotechnical engineering is a branch of civil engineering that has around 80 years of history, but it is perhaps still young in Malaysia.

We evaluate the stability, and to reinforce or strengthen the unstable slopes. For grounds that are weak, we improve them in order to secure adequate bearing capacity and to reduce settlement.

In Malaysia, if the Geological Department is to deal with engineering problems, more geotechnical engineers should be hired.

I am not sure if it is being implemented in Malaysia, but soil boring and basic soil testings should be mandatory for all construction projects in order to avoid future foundation problems. For locations adjacent to or on the slopes, slope stability analysis is a must. These should be part of the laws.

Most of the buyers are not civil engineers and geotechnical experts, thus we don't expect them to understand potential problems of their properties. Engineers are there to safeguard the interest of the public.

I was in Malaysia last November to give a talk on the earthquake design of soil structures and slopes jointly with the structures colleagues from the Universiti Sains Malaysia and my own institution (Columbia University, New York).

At the seminar held in KL and Penang, I mentioned about possibility of soil liquefaction at the former tin mining sites shall there be a minor earthquake, and immediately after the talk, several engineers came to tell me about the sink holes in Perak following the Sumatra Earthquake of December 26, 2004.

It was a surprise and how such distant earthquake affected the loose soil deposit in Malaysia (of course we were aware of the shaking of buildings)?

After returning to the US, I searched for information and indeed sinkholes were reported in the local newspapers. I then contacted the authorities in Perak, but there has been very little information about further works done on these sites.

This is an example showing how some of the very important problems should be studied through research. We should not wait for further action until another earthquake or disaster.

Many advanced countries invest in research in order to help us understand better the problems and to find solutions to these problems. Malaysia should be doing the same thing.

Hoe I. Ling, Associate Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, Columbia University (also Visiting Associate Professor of Geomechanics, Harvard University)