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Dangerous mixture hurled into sky

This was the scene at Well 516 on Thursday morning as a column of oil, gas and sand was shot high into the air following a blow-out the previous night.

SERIA (August 29, 1959) – A highly inflammable mixture of oil, gas and sand was still being hurled about 150 feet into the air at noon today following a blow-out at an oil well in the area of the cinema here on Wednesday night.

The Brunei Petroleum Co Ltd emergency services swung into immediate action after the blow-out and safety measures were adopted over a wide area round the well.

Electricity and gas supplies to houses in the vicinity of the well were cut off and residents in the Roxana district were warned to be ready to evacuate their homes.

The well – Seria 516 – is situated near to the coast not far from the Shell Recreation Club.

The Borneo Bulletin as told that a dangerous situation could develop if there was a change of wind and the oil, gas and sand were sprayed over a wide area inland, instead of being blown out to sea.

BSP officials at the scene recalled the blow-out at Seria 354 in 1953 when a huge subsidence of land formed a crater near Jalan Tengah, which made a cement plant disappear.

Brunei stops cash aid to Chinese schools

BRUNEI TOWN (August 30, 1969) – The Brunei Government will end it financial aid to Chinese schools in the State from the end of this year.

Last year, it gave Chinese schools about $785,000 to cover half of their recurrent expenditure and approved capital work and for the school feeding scheme.

The grants have helped keep school fees down to about $10 a month as compared with the $16 to $20 a month charged by Christian mission schools, which lost government support in 1959.

In his circular to schools, the Director of Eduction, Dato Malcolm MacInnes, said: “I regret to inform you that the government has decided to discontinue financial assistance to Chinese schools after December 31, 1969.”

He said the decision had been conveyed to him by the State Secretary in a memorandum on June 19, and reiterated in another on August 18, which confirmed that the decision was final.

“Your school, like all other Chinese schools, will continue to be supervised by officers of this department,” Dato MacInnes said.

Gangsters put ‘muscle’ on insurance companies

KUCHING (August 25, 1979) – People in Kuching are hiring gangsters to pressure insurance companies into making quick settlement claims.

Police say they’ve received complaints from both companies and insurance agents of being harassed by these gangsters.

The method appears to be that when insured people go to see their insurers about paying out on claims – they take the gangsters along as their “muscle”.

Police have pledged action to stamp out this type of stand-over tactic before it gets too much of a hold – but they have also appealed for help in doing so.

It’s not the only problem police have been having with thugs of late, for some have been busy in an area of new town building trying to work a “protection racket”.

The place is Song Thian Cheok Road, where businesses have started in two large blocks of four-storey shophouses.

The criminals are paying calls on shopkeepers there telling them they are the “masters of the area” and they will protect them – for a fee.

The police say the public can help in preventing a lot of petty crime – for instance, by women not going out wearing gold necklaces and other jewellery, particularly when in crowded places like shopping centres and bus stations or when they are walking alone. They shouldn’t carry a lot of money either.

Rasau: Moving in for the kill

AUGUST 26, 1989 – A wisp of white smoke hangs defiantly over the scorched earth. But the occasional feeble flicker of flame is all that’s left of the roaring inferno.

Slowly but surely, experts are moving for the final kill.

But there’s still a long way to go and nobody is taking chances with Brunei’s Rasau-17 blow-out until it breathes its last.

The possibility of the wayward well staging a final flourish in its death throes has not been ruled out.

Brunei Shell said this week that the possibility of the blow-out reactivating during the killing operation was “slight”.

Two large pipelines have been laid from the Rasau-19 site to the Belait River, where a pumping barge will ensure that large volumes of water can be supplied to help the well-killing.

Teenagers lost to ‘e-male’

AUGUST 25, 1999 – Some horror stories of gullible young girls in Brunei being allegedly lured through e-mail by foreign men are being recounted here.

In the latest incident, a father of a 17-year-old school girl, who wishes to be identified only as Mr Wong, say that his daughter disappeared from home recently after her e-mail pen friend took her away to Miri, Sarawak.

They had travelled to Johore in West Malaysia after Miri, where she was traced by relatives.

Mr Wong, a contractor, who lives along Jalan Muara near the Brunei capital, did not report the matter to the police but used his own initiative to track down his daughter, who had also exchanged photographs with her pen pal, before her departure.

He eventually succeeded in tracking her down.

He said that the first inkling that his daughter had gone, came from his Thai gardener who had spotted a Miri registered car pulling up and the boss’s daughter getting in with a suitcase.

The man appeared to be in his mid 40s and by the time Mr Wong rushed off to Miri, there was no trace of them. The girl told her parents later that they had spent a night in a hotel and then flown to Johore.

After being brought back, the young girl kept insisting on going back.

She said she wanted to join her friend who needed her because he was having financial difficulties and in ill health.

But the parents would naturally not let her go and are keeping a close watch over her.

Similar stories have been surfacing in Brunei in recent times, and the police say that a report should be made to help could be rendered.

Most parents are worried about their children’s e-mail activities.

“My daughter locks herself in the room for hours and hours, and practically stopped talking to the family,” complained another worried parent. – Ignatius Stephen

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