Don’t forget your industrial-strength umbrella when you walk home these couple of days because it’s been cloudy with a chance of falling metal in Singapore. Decorative fixtures in particular.
A panel fell 40 stories from the top of an HDB block in Bendemeer Road last Saturday evening (June 23) around 7pm, The Straits Times reported. It fell onto a grass patch near a playground, according to a witness.
While no one was hurt, the ground area beneath the facade was cordoned off as a precaution. HDB and the Jalan Besar Town Council also said they plan to perform checks on nearby blocks with similar facade materials.
“The panel is part of the block facade design and is non-structural,” said the Housing Board in a Tuesday statement to The Straits Times. “The building is structurally safe.”
The Bendemeer road incident comes less than a week after a remarkably similar incident at a Pasir Ris housing block.
On June 18, a piece of decorative cladding fell from the top floor of a building, smashing onto the ground floor at Block 270 Pasir Ris Street 21.
Luckily, no one was hurt in that mishap either. The HDB and local town council also confirmed that the fallen panel in that incident was simply decorative and also “non-structural.”
May we say that just because a building is structurally safe does not mean that a piece of debris falling from the top of that building can’t kill you.
To local passersby, we recommend looking up occasionally while walking near tall buildings. To the HDB, we recommend superglue.
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