Every day at 5.30am, retiree Victor Devan, 70, wakes up to the sound of the azan sounding from the nearby Abdul Gaffor mosque.

The Rochor Centre resident of 25 years – a familiar face to many in the area – has never needed an alarm clock.

Instead, the retired oil trader and father of two grown-up daughters relies on the Islamic call to prayer as the call to start his day.

The familiar sound is one of the things he will miss the most about Rochor Centre, apart from his favourite wonton noodles from a stall at one of the centre’s coffee shops.

Like most other residents there, Mr Devan will be moving to a new flat in Kallang in May, as the centre makes way for the new North- South Expressway by the end of this year.

A cluster of four Housing Board blocks, each painted mainly in red, blue, yellow or green, Rochor Centre is one of the few remaining landmarks from 1970s Bugis, where sailors, transvestites and night soil could be found before the area was cleaned up in the 1980s.

Completed in 1977, Rochor Centre was originally home to 183 shops and 567 households.

But these four busy blocks on the city fringe have lost some of their bustle. As of January, 106 shops had closed, while 36 households had moved out.

Rochor Centre is one of three iconic public housing estates soon to be demolished for redevelopment. The others are Dakota Crescent, built in 1958, and four low-rise HDB blocks in Siglap built in 1964.

Many long-time residents of the centre are wistful about leaving.

“This place is real heartland Singapore; it reminds me of the kampung that I grew up in when I was little,” said Mr Devan, an Indian who speaks English, Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese, and enjoys the affectionate nickname “orh hia” (literally “black brother” in a Chinese dialect), given to him by neighbours and shopkeepers.

Moving is heart-wrenching, he added, and he and his wife will host a farewell party for their neighbours before they go.

“We have developed great relationships with our neighbours. Each neighbour is worth a million bucks,” he said.

Another long-time resident, Mr Ng Poh Pang, 73, who lives with his wife in a three-room flat where he raised his three children, said: “I honestly thought I would live here until the end of my days.”

Said his eldest son, Steven, 48, a shipping manager: “I always tell my two children stories of my childhood here – playing games with my neighbours, cycling at the playground. It’s incredible to see them play in the exact spot, and yet it saddens me that it’s all going to be gone.”

The HDB said that 91 per cent of the residents at Rochor Centre will move to replacement flats at the nearby Kallang Trivista. Of these residents, 15 per cent chose flats located near their old neighbours or relatives.

Said Jalan Besar GRC MP Denise Phua, who has served the residents for the past decade: “Life will not be the same but not all is lost… Residents can look forward to a more serene setting of greenery and peace different from that in busy Rochor.”

With Rochor Centre’s impending demolition drawing closer, Singaporeans have rushed to document it for the last time through social media posts, music videos and sketching events.

A local photographer known only as Nguan, who photographed the iconic centre last year, said: “I’m envious of its former residents, who got as close as you can to knowing what it’s like to live inside a rainbow.”

chiaytr@sph.com.sg

domteojy@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 31, 2016.
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After months of clear skies and fresh air, air quality in Singapore deteriorated over the past two days, with a strong burning smell hanging over many areas.

Although the 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index, a measure of air quality here, continued to hover in the moderate range, it reached a high of 84 in northern Singapore at 8pm yesterday.

This is the highest 24-hour PSI reading registered this year.

The culprit this time may not be Sumatra in Indonesia, where most of the haze-causing fires that affected Singapore in September and October last year were located.

This time, the pollution is likely to have come from Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo or even Singapore’s own backyard, experts say.

Winds blowing from the north-east and east could be carrying the haze to Singapore.

Local vegetation fires reported on Tuesday could also be a contributing factor, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force said the largest fire it responded to on Tuesday was near the junction of Tampines Avenues 1 and 10, and it, too, was relatively minor.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Reuters, AFP, The Straits Times, Berita Harian

Associate Professor Koh Tieh Yong, a weather researcher from SIM University, said there was a spike in the number of hot spots in Peninsular Malaysia, particularly in Pahang, over the weekend.

“In the late afternoon on Tuesday, moderate hazy conditions reached Singapore. The time lapse is consistent with our distance from the hot spot sources,” he said.

Mr Chris Cheng, strategic development and research director at volunteer group People’s Movement to Stop Haze (PM.Haze), suspects the haze may be coming from peat fires around an oil palm plantation located at eastern Sedili Kechil in Johor, Malaysia.

“We checked the wind direction, hot spot, peat and plantation data, but we need an image of a local fire, and on-the-ground investigations there to verify the data,” he said.

The current monsoon season, when winds blow mainly from the north-east, is transitioning to the inter-monsoon season, when winds are more variable.

Skin and haircare tips to beat the haze

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The Straits Times, Shutterstock.com

Over the past few days, they have been blowing from the north-east and east, said Dr Erik Velasco, a research scientist from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. “It is probable that winds blowing from the east brought plumes from fires in Borneo to Singapore,” he said.

While only a small number of fires were reported there over the past week, cloudy conditions could be preventing satellites from picking up more hot spots, he added.

Singapore could still be badly hit when the usual haze season rolls in around June.

Dr Velasco said: “We are still experiencing the effects of a monster El Nino that started last year. In the region, El Nino enhances dryness, and therefore fires.

“Because of the magnitude of El Nino this year, we must be prepared for a new period of intense haze similar to last year’s, once the winds start blowing from the south and south-west, bringing plumes from Sumatra and Kalimantan.”

Today, however, the NEA says the air quality is expected to stay in the moderate range, and normal activities can be carried out.

audreyt@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 31, 2016.
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Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam has called on Singaporeans to reach out to their Muslim neighbours and build social cohesion, saying they are obliged to do so as the recent string of terror attacks threatens to fray the trust between the communities here.

He underlined the need to thwart Islamophobia – or prejudice against Muslims – from developing, after a closed-door meeting yesterday with 60 students from the six full-time madrasahs, or Islamic religious schools, in Singapore.

“Whatever it is, we’re Singaporeans together and that trumps everything else,” he told reporters, adding that “the 85 per cent who are non-Muslim have an obligation to reach out to the Muslim community and make sure the bonds are strong”.

He noted that after each of the recent terror attacks in Europe and the United States, the number of attacks against Muslims shot up threefold.

While there was no immediate threat of such violence erupting in Singapore, he warned that non- Muslims could start developing negative attitudes towards Muslims.

“People will be too politically correct to express them, but internally, they will start looking at Muslims differently,” he said, adding that feedback from Muslims indicates they are concerned about rising Islamophobia in Singapore.

Before the dialogue, Mr Shanmugam visited the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) and later, the adjacent Madrasah Irsyad Zuhri.

Muis chief executive Abdul Razak Maricar and Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs Amrin Amin also took part in the dialogue.

Mr Shanmugam said the students raised the topic of Islamophobia in Singapore, adding that it was an issue the Government recognised as a significant risk to the country’s social fabric.

If Singaporeans become prejudiced against Muslims, terrorists will find it easier to recruit them, he said.

“If 85 per cent of the population that’s non-Muslim starts developing Islamophobia, that’s precisely what the terrorists want you to do… When the minority Muslim community feels marginalised and discriminated against, that’s when you get fertile ground for recruitment.”

“We’ll be playing right into their hands,” he added.

A student at the dialogue, Madrasah Al-Maarif student Afifah Shameemah, recounted to reporters an incident at a school camp two years ago when a participant from another school made a joke about Muslims being terrorists.

The 17-year-old said the remarks hurt her feelings, but she did not speak up at that time. But if it were to happen today, she would, she said.

“It may be a joke, but because we are in a multiracial country, we really have to be careful about what we say and make sure we aren’t hurting anybody with our words.”

Madrasah Al-Arabiah Secondary 3 student Kasyful Azim, 15, who also took part in the dialogue, suggested including madrasah schools in more national sports and academic competitions, so that their students can better integrate with their peers in mainstream schools.

ziliang@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 31, 2016.
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