Kuala Lumpur - Mr Shaharuddin Adnan had hoped for the best when he called and heard his son's cellphone ringing.
Instead, his worst fears came true when he saw a hand, sticking out from the rubble of his collapsed house, holding the phone.
The 63-year-old retired businessman's home was one of the many crushed by the landslide at Bukit Antarabangsa yesterday morning.
His son Shaiful Khas, 20, was one of four who died in the disaster.
Also in his house at that time were his wife and a relative. Both survived.
Mr Shaharuddin said everybody was on the top floor of his double-storey house except for his son, who was playing computer games downstairs.
'At about 3am, I heard him shout, 'Why is the house moving?' Everything else was a blur as the house started to fall apart and collapse,' he said.
'When everything came to a stop, I found my wife and relative to be safe, but I could not locate Shaiful. So I decided to call him on his mobile phone and followed the ringing tone.'
He found his son buried under the rubble.
The rescue team came in with saws and other equipment, but Shaiful was already dead, said Mr Shaharuddin.
Engineer K. Thanarajah lost his wife N. Logeswari, 40, in the tragedy while his second son Thivesh, 10, suffered a spinal injury.
Mr Thanarajah fractured his arm, but his two other children escaped unhurt.
A relative said Madam Logeswari could have survived had she not rushed into Thivesh's room to save the boy.
'Walls started crumbling and the staircase broke, leaving them all stranded upstairs,' he said.
Another survivor, businessman Hassan Saad, 48, was watching television in his living room at 4am when he heard what sounded like strong wind.
Suddenly there was a sort of roar. He ran out of the house and saw the earth sliding down the hill slope and hitting his neighbour's house.
Mr Hassan shouted to wake up his family and alert his neighbours to run for their lives. His family of 10, including his mother-in-law and two cousins, managed to run to safety.
Mr Lian Wan Jian of Taman Bukit Mewah, who managed to flee to safety along with his family, believed they were saved only because of the location of his house.
'Maybe we were able to save ourselves because our house is at the end (of the row),' he told reporters.
