IT took both a 30-tonne mobile crane and a 50-tonne telescopic crane to make an overturned 26-tonne tipper lorry upright again.

On Friday at around 2.10pm, a Malaysian-registered tipper lorry fell over on its right side while unloading two tonnes of gravel.

The gravel is made up of crushed stones and limestone powder. It is used for surfacing roads before tar is applied over it.

The accident occurred near the T-junction connecting Empress Road and Farrer Road, at the construction site of Farrer Road MRT Station.

Fortunately, no one was injured.

Driver Mohd Tarmizi Muhamad, 40, had activated the hydraulic jack to lift the tipper body.

When it was raised till about three metres, he claimed that he felt the tipper body shake as it was unloading the gravel.

Said Mr Tarmizi in Malay: 'The dry gravel was unloaded easily but the wet gravel stuck to one side and was more difficult to unload.

'When all the dry gravel came off, leaving the wet and heavy ones, the bucket (referring to the tipper body) tilted to the right. That was when it happened.'

The lorry tipped over and spilled a mound of gravel on a fenced section of the construction site .

The fence, metal covering and concrete in the section buckled under the weight of the tipper body.

Three sets of oxygen tanks that were used for welding also collapsed into the pile of rubble.

'Luckily, all I got was a shock,' said the Malaysian.

He quickly unbuckled his seat belt and climbed to the left side of the lorry.

A construction worker helped pull him out of the lorry.

When The New Paper arrived at around 3pm, the road with incoming traffic on Empress Road had been closed due to the debris that spilled onto the road.

Motorists could not turn into Empress Road and had to remain on Farrer Road. Traffic was slightly slow and congested throughout the road closure.

At 3.15pm, the two cranes arrived. By 3.25pm, safety officers had cordoned off the area with red and white tape.

Massive cranes

Curious passers-by and construction workers looked on as the two massive cranes worked together to lift the 8m-long vehicle.

It took only two minutes to put the lorry back in its original position.

The accident was Mr Tarmizi's first in his 15 years of driving heavy vehicles.

He had not driven a 12-wheeled tipper lorry in two years.

This is the second accident this week involving a tipper lorry. On Tuesday, a tipper lorry tipped over and landed on its right side after crashing into a road divider near the Keppel Viaduct, causing a massive jam.

Nurul Asyikin Mohd Nasir

This article was first published in The New Paper.