Built to last, not on human skulls: Malaysia-Singapore causeway’s 100-year history
- Its foundations were rumoured to contain human remains and a huge hole was blasted out of it in WWII. But it survived – and just keeps growing
When construction began on the Johor-Singapore Causeway in August 1919, it was the largest engineering project in Malaya, costing an estimated 17 million Straits dollars – roughly the equivalent of US$1.6 billion in modern money.
The design by Messrs Coode, Matthews, Fitzmaurice & Wilson stretched 1.06km from bank to bank and its width of 18.2 metres allowed for two metre-gauge railway tracks, a 7.9-metre roadway and space for the laying of a water pipeline.
More than 2,000 workers were employed for the causeway project – European, Chinese and Indian labourers as well as members of indigenous communities. More than half worked at the quarries in Singapore’s Pulau Ubin and Bukit Timah while the rest were employed on-site. With the help of steam tugs and barges from England, the labourers moved some 2 million tonnes of granite from the quarries to construct the causeway.
A popular legend involving the causeway’s construction claims human skulls were incorporated into the foundations to appease evil spirits and ensure the safety of its builders. This rumour led coastal communities living near the site to keep their children under close supervision for fear they would be kidnapped. But according to Haji Mohd Anis, whose father worked on the causeway, there was no truth to the stories.
“What the workers … had to do there was carry stones from a tongkang (seagoing barge) … and throw the stones into the water until they reached a level required by the engineer,” he recalled in an oral history interview. “When they came home, they shared what they had done for work: throw stones!”
