KL’s River of Life: Once a Beautiful Tourist Attraction, Now Broken & An Accident Waiting to Happen

At its core, the project was created to clean and revive polluted rivers in Kuala Lumpur and transform the city centre into a hub of vibrancy.

The transformation of the 10.7km long waterfront took a number of years and costs about 4.4 billion ringgit in total. The result? KL River of Life is now part of the ‘World’s 10 Best Waterfront Districts’ list by the Independent. Not too bad!

However, cracks are finally showing in the project as a number of reports indicate that the River of Life was badly designed and left unmaintained.

A disgruntled Twitter user brought his frustrations to the platform after seeing the destruction of the facilities at the center of the attraction. In his tweet, one can visibly see the broken stairs, which can easily cause an accident.

Dah buat River of Life berbilion tapi budaya selenggara dipinggirkan. Nak tunggu ada VIP tergolek kat sini baru repair kot. pic.twitter.com/VNNOilz5K3

— Ruud Irwan (@ruud_irwan) June 28, 2022

The user said: ‘maybe we have to wait for a VIP to fall down these stairs.’

In January 2022, a woman uploaded a video of her nephew who fell into an uncovered hole by the river. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt in the incident.

korang kalau bawak anak dtg river of life KL hati2 lah. rupanya ramai bebudak dah jd mangsa jatuh dlm lubang tu pic.twitter.com/DoVecCb7mN

— MALAYSIA MOST VIRALL (@MALAYSIAVIRALL) January 20, 2022

A number of netizens pointed out that Malaysia is lacking in maintaining valuable and practical infrastructures and facilities. But with the number of broken escalators in the LRT and MRT stations alone, is this theory proving itself to be right?

Maintenance ni bukan budaya Malaysia. Daripada isu jalan raya, lampu jalan, eskalator etc. Huhuhu.

— ?? R Î P P (@wolveriffverine) June 28, 2022

old news flash, MALAYSIA MANA ADA BUDAYA SELENGGARA! Propose projek untuk one off masuk poket sikit, siap dan tinggalkan https://t.co/aiT1xzMulC

— Stam Mustapha ? (@StamMustapha) June 29, 2022

Initially, the River of Life’s main focus was to clean and beautify rivers while giving the city centre a boost in commercialisation and tourism. With the amount of damage that can be seen on the grounds, is the attraction still safe to be used? We hope the relevant authorities will take action and prioritise the safety of potential patrons.