Boy’s death shows danger of trash thrown from Malaysia high-rises, and residents’ lack of civic-mindedness
When an office chair fell from a height onto a schoolboy in Kuala Lumpur, killing him, it showed the risks residents of high-rises take when they throw junk and rubbish from windows. Yet the habit has not been stamped out
What should have been a quick trip to the grocery store ended in tragedy for a 15-year-old Malaysian earlier this year.
S. Sathiswaran and his mother were returning home from the shop at the Seri Pantai People’s Housing Project in Pantai Dalam, a residential area in the southwest of Kuala Lumpur, when an office chair fell from an upper floor and struck him on the head, killing him.
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The tragedy, on January 15, was the first fatality reported in the local media caused by a dangerous and irresponsible habit that plagues high-rise public housing compounds in the Malaysian capital: residents throwing refuse and unwanted junk out of windows and over the side of common walkways, regardless of how far it will fall or where it will land.
Running a grocery store is not usually regarded as a dangerous job, but Minachi Munianday, 48, disagrees. She owns the Kedai Runcit Wawasan Seri Murni store on the ground floor of another public housing compound, Kampung Baru Air Panas, in Kuala Lumpur’s northern district of Setapak.
Since Minachi opened the shop 12 years ago, she says, not a day has gone by when she has not feared for her life because of the regularity wih which objects are tossed out by residents on the upper floors. In 2011, Minachi became a victim of such reckless behaviour.
