PHOTO: The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad

SINGAPORE — 35 years ago today, the Lian Yak Building, better known as Hotel New World, collapsed at about 11.15am on 15 March, 1986.

Standing at the junction of Owen Road and Serangoon Road, the six-storey building was occupied by a nightclub, a branch of the Industrial & Commercial Bank and the 67-room Hotel New World.

Singapore's first major civil disaster sparked a rescue and recovery operation involving some 500 personnel from the Singapore Civil Defence Force, Singapore Police Force, Singapore Armed Forces and the now-defunct Singapore Fire Service.

Tunneling expertsfrom Ireland and the United Kingdom, who were working on the construction of the MRT line, also played a crucial role in the rescue.

David Stewart, a senior resident engineer with the Mass Rapid Transit Corporation or MRTC (later renamed SMRT) at the time, was among the rescuers.

He told Yahoo News Singapore in 2016, “I’d never seen anything like it before. It was like a demolition site. If it happened today… we’d be imagining it was a sort of terrorist act.”

All told, 33 people perished and 17 were saved.

A Commission of Inquiry appointed by former President Wee Kim Wee later concluded that the collapse of Hotel New World was down to structural faults, and shoddy design and construction.