SINGAPORE — 1986 · Major Tragedy

The Hotel New World Collapse

ClosedSources: ALast updated: 14 October 2026

At about 11:25 on the morning of 15 March 1986 the six-storey Lian Yak Building, at the corner of Serangoon Road and Owen Road in Singapore's Rochor district, collapsed within seconds. The upper floors housed the Hotel New World, while the lower floors held a bank branch and a nightclub. About 50 people were trapped in the rubble. A rescue operation involving the Singapore Civil Defence Force, soldiers and tunnelling experts from the metro construction project lasted about a week; 17 people were rescued alive and 33 died. A government commission of inquiry found that the structural calculations had completely omitted the building's own weight (dead load), so it had been built unable to support itself. It was one of the deadliest civil disasters in Singapore's history.

Date: 1986
Place: Rochor, Singapore, Singapore, SG
Category: Major Tragedy
Case Status: Closed
Coordinates: 1.3118, 103.8549 ↗

Timeline of Events

15 March 1986The Lian Yak Building housing Hotel New World collapsed; about 50 people were trapped.
16-17 March 1986Survivors were brought out in a rescue that included tunnelling experts.

22 March 1986The rescue ended; the official death toll was put at 33.
1986The commission of inquiry found the building's own weight had been left out of the structural calculations.

Sources

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