The 4,265km Pacific Crest Trail stretches from Canada to Mexico – roughly the distance between Singapore and China.

But it didn’t stop Mr Prasatt Arumugam from doing the trek from July to December last year, as he tramped through parched deserts and icy mountain passes along the US Pacific Coast, starting in Washington State near the Canadian border and ending in Campo, California, by the Mexican border.

He is the first Singaporean to conquer the trail – walking more than 40km a day for five months.

What kept the 26-year-old going was his campaign to raise funds for the Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF).

LEFT HIS JOB

The English Literature graduate from the National University of Singapore left his job as a tutor at The Learning Lab in July to undertake the social initiative he named TrekInvicta (inspired by his favourite poem, Invictus) to raise awareness and funds for CCF where he volunteers.

He saved up while working to fund the trek, and the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS) and the National Youth Council also helped pay his expenses.

Mr Prasatt had hoped to raise $26,650 – $10 for each of the 2,650 miles he walked.

He raised $47,131.

Mr Prasatt first heard about the Pacific Crest Trail when he was on a student exchange programme at Yale University in 2013.

He visited Yosemite National Park (one of the parks on the trail) and liked it.

It intrigued him that the trail covers a diverse range of terrain, including deserts, mountain passes, meadows and river crossings.

Mr Prasatt is no stranger to treks, having hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal.

He said: “The altitude demands were more on that trek but the physical demands in terms of amount climbed and distance travelled on the Pacific Crest Trail far exceeded that.”

Mr Prasatt flew to Seattle, in Washington State, and started at Hart’s Pass on July 16, finishing his trek at Campo near on Dec 9.

He prepared for the trek by climbing flights of stairs at places such as Pinnacle@Duxton, Mount Faber and Bukit Timah.

He did this for at least two hours every day, with trekking poles in hand and a loaded backpack.

Even after all that, the Pacific Crest Trail proved tough.

“Exhaustion, running low on food and water, and coping with the high altitude and extreme weather conditions, you name it,” he said.

Mr Prasatt, who slept in his tent or in motels, told tabla! that his meals consisted of Pop-Tarts (a pre-baked pastry with sugary fillings) for breakfast, and 10 to 12 energy bars that he ate throughout the day.

At night, he would have a more substantial dinner – ramen, mashed potatoes or instant rice with tuna. He would carry a few days worth of food with him, bought from shops in towns he passed along the way.

DESPERATE

One incident, when he was in the town of Chester in North California stocking up on his food supplies and taking shelter from a storm, touched him.

Said Mr Prasatt: “I had already been delayed by bad weather and was anxious to move on.

“There was no transport and the place I had to get to was not on a well-travelled route.

“I tried asking everywhere to see if anyone knew how I could leave town – my motel, stores and such – but to no avail.”

By this point, he was getting desperate as he did not want to spend more days off the trail.

“I remembered that the local bank has a visitor’s centre and told the staff I was trying to find my way out of town before the storm hit.”

Many of the staff stopped what they were doing and made calls to people they knew who could help.

“Eventually, one of them – Ms Amy Jarrad – found someone willing to go out of her way to give me a ride. Amy asked me more about from where I was and why I was hiking, and she was moved by the story.”

She later found him on Facebook and sent him a message of encouragement and promised to donate.

OVERWHELMED

“The help came at a low point in my hike – a point where I was uncertain if I could complete the trail.

“As I walked out of the bank, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the kindness I had received and broke down – not sadness, but tears of joy.

“Till then I had been cursing my luck, but perhaps if things hadn’t been as hard as they had been, I would not have had the chance to meet such beautiful souls,” he said.

When Mr Prasatt was in the second month of his trek, he often got dizzy and light-headed.

He visited a clinic in Ashland, Oregon, where doctors found that he had a heart murmur.

“They said I should stop hiking, but I felt I couldn’t stop, not after coming all the way.

“Instead, I took potassium supplements and carried on,” said Mr Prasatt, admitting that he felt scared as worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind.

But his determination saw him through and he completed the trek.

Mr Prasatt will be receiving a medal from the Pacific Crest Trail Association for finishing the trek.

Mr Prasatt, who has started a full-time job as an English literature teacher at a secondary school, said: “The Pacific Crest Trail was an immense challenge that saw me hike through rough terrain and harsh weather for five months.

“The journey of children fighting cancer is far longer and harder. If I, as a healthy individual, could not have overcome the challenges I faced alone, what more these children?”

amritak@sph.com.sg

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Two days after its formal launch in Singapore, Chinese-owned bike-sharing app Mobike still has some major issues to iron out.

The New Paper tried the three bike-sharing platforms – Mobike, ofo and oBike over two days.

Eight out of 10 times, those who tried Mobike could not find the bicycle.

The team combed areas like Tampines, Clarke Quay, Bras Basah and Kallang, and while the app indicated the bikes were at spaces like MRT stations and along pavements, they would be missing from these locations, even after a “reservation” had been made on the app.

Some of the bike icons on the app would even indicate the bicycles were inside private residences, hospitals, storerooms and construction areas.

Although the TNP team managed to find a Mobike at Tampines and Kallang Leisure Park, the bike icon on the app showed it was a distance away from where the two bicycles were supposed to be located.

Mobike uses a dockless bike-share system and users can unlock its bicycles by scanning a QR code on it.

Each bicycle comes with a proprietary “smart lock” containing GPS technology.

In response to TNP queries, Mr Florian Bohnert, head of international expansion at Mobike, said: “If the bike icons are not showing up correctly, we advise users to look around their surroundings and across the streets to locate the bikes, as the marker on the map may be affected by the surrounding environment such as buildings and other possible obstructions affecting the accuracy of the GPS signal on the map view.”

A spokesman said the company has more than a million bikes in operation. As it can monitor the location and health of Mobikes in real time, “the number of bikes that are lost or damaged is negligible”.

He added: “When necessary we can intervene, for example when a bike is damaged or parked in an unsuitable location.”

Mobike had a team studying the local market to prepare for its launch from last October and have ramped up the deployment since Tuesday’s launch.

There were similar struggles with China-based ofo, which does not use a GPS system. Users would have to find a bike and enter the bike number in the app.

It will return a combination code which can be used to release the lock on the bike.

The New Paper team searched various MRT stations from the heartlands to the CBD area, parks and Housing Board void decks, but none of ofo’s bright yellow bikes were spotted.

Based on the team’s two-day mission, local venture oBike seems to have the least issues.

Bicycles from oBike could easily be found, with many parked at various MRT stations.

Unlike Mobike, oBike tracks its bicycles through the GPS system on the user’s app, and a bicycle was found at the first attempt, near the McDonald’s outlet at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park.

This article was first published on Mar 24, 2017.
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A construction worker was killed after he was hit by a steel plate at a worksite near Changi Airport on Wednesday (Mar 22).

The police said they were informed at around 11.45am and found the unconscious man along Airport Boulevard.

He was taken by ambulance to Changi General Hospital, where he died.

The police are investigating the unnatural death.

The incident is believed to have occurred at a worksite near the airport’s new Terminal 4.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said it has issued a stop-work order to the contractor, Chan and Chan Engineering.

All works relating to excavation have ceased and MOM has started investigating, added its spokesman.

The area was not accessible to the public and was cordoned off, said the spokesman.

A spokesman for the Changi Airport Group said it is assisting the authorities in their investigation.

“We are sorry at the loss of life due to the accident and are working with the contractor to provide assistance to the worker’s family.”

The Straits Times understands that the worker was from Bangladesh and was building a high tension cable duct at the time.

It is believed that he had been adjusting horizontal struts – which held apart two steel plates as part of the duct’s temporary formwork – when one of them gave way.

One of the steel plates hit the worker, pinning him against another plate.

It is not known how long he was pinned, but his colleagues eventually managed to extract him from the plates, ST understands.

The new terminal is slated to open in the second half of this year.

This article was first published on March 23, 2017.
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A burst pipe caused a stench and water to pool in Suntec City’s carpark on Thursday (March 23).

In a photo sent by a member of the public, water could be seen spilling onto the floor of the section of the carpark – labelled with a kangaroo symbol – from an overhead pipe that had burst.

No cars were underneath the affected pipe when the photo was taken, though it remained unclear if any vehicles were initially parked at those lots and moved after the incident.

Separately, an 18-second video clip showed a pool of murky water spreading across the floor in the “red” section of the carpark as a car drove past.

The Straits Times understands that the defective pipe carried waste water, which was the cause of the stench.

When ST contacted the Suntec City security team – which was in charge of rectifying the problem – at 4.20pm, a spokesperson claimed the situation was “already under control” without elaborating further.

Ms Pow Lay Kuan, Chief Executive Officer of APM Property Management, which manages Suntec City, said: “The incident occurred at a small section of the car park which was vacant. No car was within the vicinity. The matter was attended to immediately and rectified.”

The carpark at the Suntec City development near Promenade MRT station is Singapore’s largest, and can accommodate 3,100 vehicles.

This article was first published on March 23, 2017.
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