Shaw Theatres NEX Ordered To Close Temporarily By BCA & Appoint New Professional Engineer

An incident involving a ventilation duct at Shaw Theatres Nex yesterday has left everyone shocked, confused and slightly warier of going to the movies.

Viral images have been going around of the collapse of a ventilation duct in the middle of a movie screening.

It occurred around 4.45pm, at Hall 6 of the cinema, during the movie screening of “Tenet”.

The sudden and unexpected incident left many questions unanswered since this isn’t common, even in other countries.

Unfortunately, we don’t have all the answers yet, but we might get some pretty soon as investigations are currently ongoing.

NEX To Appoint Professional Engineer To Investigate The Incident

The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has released a statement, and further investigations are still being conducted.

The object that fell during the movie is an Air-conditioning and Mechanical Ventilation (ACMV) duct.

BCA had sent an engineer to investigate the incident on the same day at 6:30pm, around 2 hours after the collapse occurred.

The cinema will be closed for the time being, and there will be no movie sessions during this period.

“For safety reasons, BCA has instructed that the cinema be closed pending further investigation,” said the statement.

BCA has also instructed the building owner to appoint a professional engineer to carry out a detailed investigation of the incident.

This includes inspecting and assessing the condition of the other ACMV ducts in the cinema and recommending rectification measures to be carried out by the building owner.

Two Injured Movie-Goers Were Taken To The Hospital

The incident injured two movie-goers, who were both taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

The exact details of their injuries are not available, but they were attended to immediately by Singapore Civil Defence Force officers who were present at the scene.

“Unfortunately two patrons were injured. They were quickly attended to by our staff and then by paramedics who arrived. They were subsequently taken to the hospital,” said a Shaw Theatres spokesperson, according to CNA.

No other injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, as we wait for the professional engineer to figure out what actually happened, did you know that the story of this incident actually made it to a US website, Variety?

You can read the article here.

Of course, while this incident is still under investigation, one of the nerds in the office actually went to do research on ventilation ducts and he has a couple of theories on why this happened.

You can check out his article here:

Meanwhile, while two people were injured due to falling ducts, another two people were injured because they allegedly tried, and failed to, gang up on a lao beng.