Despite Mudslides At Bukit Batok Nature Park, NParks Says It’s Still Safe to Visit the Park

By
Tan Shi Hui
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These few days, the sky seemed to be heartbroken and shedding tears daily. Normally, this won’t be a problem since that means we have more free water to collect.

However, for the residents of Bukit Batok, the increased amount of rain lead to mudslides at their beloved nature park.

Bukit Batok Mudslides

In July, a large slab of the cliff at Singapore Quarry broke off and fall into the lake.

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Now, something’s brewing in the west: over the past two months, mudslides have been occurring at Bukit Batok Nature Park.

This is not the first time the residents at Bukit Batok are faced with a muddy situation.

Previously, they were faced with a muddy waterfall that even overflowed to the road. You can read all about that here.

It’s Still Safe to Visit the Park

Despite the mudslides at Bukit Batok Nature Park, the park is still safe for visitors.

Although there were incidents of slope failure, that could have been caused by “the loading of saturated soil above the cliff brought about by the heavy rains”, so the park is still open and deemed safe.

This is because all these soil erosions are not happening near the areas that are accessible to the public such as the observation area.

Some Visitors & Residents are Still Worried

Visitors of the park and residents living near the park are still worried despite the reassurance.

A regular visitor of the park has observed the mud falling down the cliff for nearly two months. The mud that fell down has piled up since.

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Some of the large boulders and trees growing on the cliff had also been dislodged.

Another regular visitor also stated that initially, the “big chunks” broke off but in recent days, more of the “smaller bits of debris” dropped instead.

A resident who lives about 600m away from the park can hear the sound of the mudslide at night.

Part of Nature

Meanwhile, there’s another group of parkgoers who feel that the debris posed no immediate danger. In fact, soil erosion is merely part of nature.

They feel that intervention is only necessary if it posed a risk to human life.

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Environmental consultant Tony O’Dempsey said a possible solution would be to install cut-out drains at the top of the slope where possible; since the cause is most likely to be poor or non-existent drainage.

The good news is, at least the mudslides will get people to stay on the designated trails and not try to trespass into another area.

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Featured Image: YouTube (The Straits Times) 

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Tan Shi Hui
Email: tan.shihui@goodyfeed.com