The Housing and Development Board said last night it will conduct further repairs on the Bukit Merah home where a piece of concrete fell and injured a 6-year-old boy.
The public housing stat board said it would pay for the work set to take place Friday as it was a rental flat, and blamed the crumbling concrete on moisture – apparently a common problem in old buildings.
“HDB was alerted to an incident of spalling concrete on Tuesday afternoon (19 May 2020). Our officers visited the flat the same day, and found spalling concrete in the ceiling of the toilet,” the stat board said in response to Coconuts Singapore’s online inquiries.
The young boy was playing with water in the bathtub with a cousin Tuesday when some concrete fell from the ceiling and struck him in the back, leaving a bloody mark in photos which spread online.
The board said it was the corrosion of the steel in reinforced concrete and due to the building’s age.
“It tends to occur more frequently in moisture-prone areas such as the kitchen and bathrooms, where the humidity will speed up the carbonation process, which causes spalling concrete. However, spalling concrete is non-structural in nature and will not affect the building’s structural integrity.”
Logistics assistant Nursyafiqah Safawi, 25, the boy’s mother, told Coconuts Singapore yesterday she was watching television when she heard screams coming from the toilet where her son and her nephew were bathing.
She saw that a chunk of concrete had fallen onto her son and caused his back to bleed. He was rushed to the National University Hospital where his injuries were deemed not serious.
On the same day, a man came to fix the ceilings in their toilet and kitchen.
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