Highland Towers
The surviving Blocks 2 and 3 of the Highland Towers, similar in design to the collapsed Block 1 (2012).
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| Date | 11 December 1993 |
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| Time | 1:35 pm MST (Saturday afternoon) |
| Location | Highland Towers, Taman Hillview, Ulu Klang, Selangor, Malaysia |
| Cause | Landslide caused by continuous rainfall over the course of 2 weeks |
| Deaths | 48; one of them was rescued alive (Shizue Nakajima) but died in hospital because of her injuries. |
The Highland Towers collapse was an apartment building collapse that occurred as a result of a major landslide on 11 December 1993 in Taman Hillview, Ulu Klang, in Selangor, Malaysia. The collapse involved Block 1 of the Highland Towers, resulting in the deaths of 48 people and led to the complete evacuation of the remaining two blocks due to safety concerns.
The Highland Towers consist of three similar 12-story blocks, built in phases between 1974 and 1982 at the western base of a steeply sloped hill which was later terraced extensively in the early 1980s. These towers were home to affluent middle-class families; a sizeable percentage of the residents were expatriates.
Each block was respectively named:
A swimming pool was located between northwest side of Block 2 and northeast rear of Block 3.
Block 1 collapsed after 10 continuous days of rainfall led to a landslide after the retaining wall behind the Block 1 of Highland Tower's car park was destroyed.
Behind the Highland Towers was a small stream of water known as East Creek. East Creek flowed into the site of the Highland Towers before the construction of Highland Towers, so a pipe system was built to divert the stream to bypass the Highland Towers.
In 1991, a new housing development project, known as the Bukit Antarabangsa Development Project, commenced construction on the hilltop behind the Highland Towers. The hill was cleared of trees and other land-covering plants, exposing the soil to land erosion that is the leading factor of causing landslides.
The water from the new construction site was diverted into the existing pipe system used to divert the flow of East Creek. This overloaded the pipe system and water, sand and silt from both East Creek and the construction site of Bukit Antarabangsa infiltrated the pipes. The pipes burst at several locations on the hill, and the surrounding soil (behind Block 1) had to absorb the excessive water. The monsoon rainfall in December 1993 further worsened the situation.
The water content in the soil became over-saturated to the extent that the soil had turned viscous, in effect becoming mud. By the end of November 1993, the hill slope had been saturated with water, and water was seen flowing down the hill slopes and the constructed retaining walls.
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