When I came back from holiday in Singapore, I walked to campus as I had done so many times before. As I approached the Singapore campus, I noticed frantic activity: road blocks, a surprisingly high number of police officers, fire engines, ambulances. I was wondering what had happened: did the world finally come to realize that Insead was charging way too high tuition fees? Did they fact that we had to do our Non Negotiable projects in the field upset anybody anywhere?

Insead all over the place on the news, TV, radio, and newspapers the day after.

Turns out that the MRT station next door had just collapsed and they were looking for people under tons of broken concrete. The parking lot of the school was turned into a temporary hospital. The director of operations on campus forwarded a message to all participants:

"Dear All,

Regarding the unfortunate accident on the adjacent building site, you have probably got all the details from the press. The accident happened while they were preparing the reinforced metal bars prior to casting at basement 5. It was not a ‘landslip’ and our buildings are not affected.

We continue to make our facilities available to the emergency services but would anticipate that they will withdraw fully from our site by Friday morning.

On the INSEAD building site work is currently suspended as a precautionary measure and we anticipate work to start on our site again on Monday 3 May.

Thanking you for your understanding and cooperation this afternoon."

My thoughts and prayers go to the victims and their families. Some 28 people were taken to hospital, 2 people died and some 15 were still missing on that day.