At the site of the hill collapse which took the life of an eight-year-old girl on Saturday, the Selangor Mentri Besar was reported as having said:

'... the state government had urged those staying on hilly areas to submit their building plans to the local authorities. On receiving the plan, the related department would carry out studies on the slope and map out precautions to be taken to prevent incidents like this. Only fewer than 10 percent of hill tenants have submitted their building plans so far'.

Is that shocking or what? Whose fault is it? If the local council had only been doing its job, then all those people staying in the bungalows would have not been allowed to stay in their houses. Indeed, if the local council had been following their own rules, that eight-year-old girl would not have died.

If that bungalow did not have an approved building plan or a certificate of fitness, then the responsibility for the girl's death lies squarely on the shoulders of the Mentri Besar of Selangor for dereliction of duty.

They talk of loss of topsoil as if it were an after thought to the list of reasons for the cause of erosion, floods and loss of human life. Yet they do not tell you that there can be rulings imposed to preserve topsoil.

In New Zealand, even if it is your own property, you are not really permitted to build or even concrete over your entire land area. There is this ruling about ensuring that at least 35 percent of your land remains permeable. This means that rain water should be able to permeate into the ground rather than run off.

The problem with Malaysia is the unbridled power that developers seem to have in milking their profits from whatever land they can build on. If only the local councils were disciplined enough to abide by their own rulings, we may not see loss of life, erosion, landslides and collapse of buildings.

Unfortunately, it is too late right now to make changes to all the mistakes that they have allowed to happen. We just have to wait for the next major incident after which we shall, of course, once again blame God.