Falling tree incidents can be expected in garden city

I disagree with Mr Colin Ong Tau Shien that the National Parks Board (NParks) should be more proactive in preventing tree-falling incidents (Step up checks and monitoring of tree health; Dec 22).

As a layman, I think NParks has already done all that is humanly possible to check on the health of the approximately two million trees in our nation. More checks will definitely increase costs and drain our manpower demands.

As we are living in a garden city, we should anticipate act-of-God accidents like trees falling occasionally due to unexpected bad weather. These are even more likely with the current climate change that is being experienced globally.

Instead, as individuals, we should take precautions and avoid taking shelter under big trees during extreme weather.

I hope fewer cases of injuries or deaths will then occur in tree-falling incidents.

Chan Chee Beng

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 25, 2018, with the headline Falling tree incidents can be expected in garden city. Subscribe