explosion
Jonathan Chan
On ‘explosion’
In February, 2021, an explosion occurred at a building in Tuas, a base of Singapore’s industrial activity. The sound, a loud bang, reverberated across the area, drawing the attention of workers as those scalded by the fire fled the building. It was eventually discerned that the explosion was caused by combustible dust in the form of potato starch powder, but by then, 3 workers had passed away from their injuries and 5 had been left in critical condition.
Upon reading about this incident, I was reminded of the idea that the level of physical risk that migrant workers in Singapore’s construction industry are exposed to systemises the possibility of maiming and death. I thought of the profound human cost of exposing migrant men to an array of possible injuries, exacerbated by intense demand for construction and inadequate periods of rest. These thoughts informed this poem, in which I sought to capture the shock and disorientation of that day and the subsequent grief of those who had lost brothers, sons, and husbands to the accident. I wrote this poem as an attempt to honour the lives of Shohel Md, Anisuzzaman Md, and Marimuthu, men from Bangladesh and India who had arrived in Singapore, galvanised by the desire to care for their families.
The art in the poem’s thumbnail is courtesy of © David Najib Kasir (@davidnajibkasir).