11th December 2000 - Singapore Tornado
Straits Times - December 12 2000During a recent trip to Singapore I was surprised to find a report of a tornado, an extremely rare event for a location just 130km North of the equator. The story and picture from the paper are reproduced below, if you have an issue with the reproduction of this story here let me know and I will remove it.
Containers go tumbling in freak storm
GEORGE GASCON
Thrown aside by powerful winds, these industrial containers lie haphazardly in the warehouse at Penjuru Lane in Jurong.
A FREAK storm with winds like a twister tore through a Jurong industrial estate, bringing down stacks of industrial containers weighing as much as 7.5 tonnes each. The powerful winds also lifted a man into the air, smashed windows and broke large trees.
The Sunday evening storm sent some empty industrial containers crashing through the zinc roof of a warehouse at Penjuru Lane. 'It was just like in the movie Twister,' remarked a security guard who said he saw a funnel-shaped wind formation sweeping through the warehouse compound.
The storm started at about 5.30 pm with strong winds, said Mr Muthu, 52, who was on duty at the time. 'I could see the wind, like a tornado, twisting around,' he said.
'I've never seen anything like it. I was so frightened. I ran back to the guardhouse and held onto a pillar.'
The winds stopped after about 10 minutes, giving way to 10 minutes of heavy rain.
Mr Adam Boon, managing director of an engineering firm at Penjuru Close, said the winds lifted one of his workers about five metres, but he was not injured. Mr Boon said the winds also smashed some of his windows.
When The Straits Times visited the area yesterday, the affected companies were using cranes and other heavy vehicles to clear up the mess left by the storm.
The director of one company, who did not wish to be named, said they were still assessing the damage.'This is quite bad. I've not heard of such a thing happening before,' he said.
There were no reports of injuries from the storm.
According to the Meteorological Service, strong and gusty winds are usually linked with thunderstorms. More storms are forecast for the next few days.