Collapse of Hotel New World

The collapse of Hotel New World was a civil disaster that occurred in Singapore on 15 March 1986. The Hotel New World was a six-story building situated at the junction of Serangoon Road and Owen Road in the Rochor district when it suddenly collapsed, trapping 50 people beneath the rubble. 33 people died and 17 people were rescued.

The Lian Yak Building (Chinese: 联益大厦) was completed in 1971 and consisted of six storeys and a basement garage. The Hotel New World, previously known as the New Serangoon Hotel until 1984, was the main tenant occupying the top four floors, and a branch of the Industrial & Commercial Bank (ICB) took up the ground level. A nightclub, Universal Neptune Nite-Club and Restaurant, was situated on the second level of the building at the time of the collapse.

The building had previously experienced a carbon monoxide gas leak in some of the hotel rooms on 29 August 1975, hospitalising 35 guests. Various witnesses, such as contractors and the night club's watchman, reported cracks in the building's walls between 1974 to 1983, though structural issues had not yet been observed. One day before the Lian Yak Building collapsed, a large crack appeared on a pillar at the nightclub and exposed the pillar's bricks. A mirror, installed on a column in the nightclub's dressing room, also spontaneously cracked, and the column's plywood panelling was bulging to the right. The building's owner, Ng Khong Lim, was informed of both instances, and ordered workers to prop up both columns; witnesses say that workers used timber planks as the props.