Dangerous Buildings o_O

Last Wednesday (I know, I'm awfully late at blogging), we were having our Language Description (That's grammar for you) classes when we suddenly heard an awful male shriek/groan from nowhere. The class was held at the library, our surroundings were eerily dark and besides our lecturer and us, there was nobody else present. Everyone got a jolt from that sound, and someone recalled hearing a similar sound the day before at our lecture halls, albeit female. Then, Language Description class transformed into 'Horror stories sharing class' momentarily, when our lecturer, Madam Norhazian started telling us all the supposedly ghost sightings around our academic building and also *gasps* our hostel.

Actually, the ghost stories weren't so scary compared to the real story Madam Hazian told us. Apparently, there were two sky-high apartments in construction near hostel blocks 3 and 4. She said that she gets the shivers every time she looks at the construction site, primarily because the ground was steep, looked unstable and the buildings were very near our hostels - too near for comfort. Take a look at the photos up there to see what I mean. If there's another earthquake in Sumatra, the aftermath of the shakes might possibly reach Penang and judging from the state of the weak foundation, the apartments will just topple over and crush our hostels as well as Pantai Hospital, which is just next to it.

Putting aside the concern for my safety, I'm disappointed with whoever that gave this project the thumbs-up. Even non-experts like me could see the potential danger of having such tall buildings so near another building, and the fact that the ground is not properly flattened does not help either. What's the point of earning money from new tenants when the building might collapse and take thousands of lives with it? Think of the teacher in trainings living in the hostels, think of the patients at Pantai Hospital, think of the future tenants of the apartments - is any amount of profit worth it to endanger all those lives?

I might be overly dramatic here, but in this world, anything might happen, and the fact that there are corrupt politicians who approved this project, immoral developers who carried out this project and other people who supported this project makes them scarier than ghosts and spirits. This is also why I chose not to focus on the numerous ghost stories shared during Language Description, but rather on the potential danger.