You hear rumbles beneath your feet. The floor you are standing on, the one that you never once doubted, is now shaking, creaking and breaking.
In the split second, you might conclude: Shoot. Earthquakes.
However, you are not in Japan, nor Indonesia. You are in Singapore, a country in a low seismic-hazard geographical region, where earthquakes are almost impossible to happen.
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This was probably in the minds of the four people when they experienced a collapsing floor in a warehouse in Toa Payoh.
The Collapse
In the evening of 28 Jan, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) were notified about the incident at 11 Toa Payoh Industrial Park, as stated in their Facebook post.
Among the four victims, one of them was fortunate enough to have freed himself before the SCDF came to the rescue while the other three, with two of them being children, were trapped under rugs and storage racks.
They were all sent to hospital upon the rescue. Thankfully, no casualties were involved.
Netizens on Reddit have since then expressed their opinions and concerns regarding the case, speculating that AHT Carpet and Flooring, the tenant of the warehouse, may have overestimated the resistance of the mezzanine floor.
However, the company’s founder, Mr Hairul, was assured by his vendor that the mezzanine floor, installed in May 2024, is sturdy enough for the storage of his carpets.
I guess we could now say that the vendor’s assurance has no grounds.
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Building Remains Intact
Well, good news is the structural integrity of the building remains intact, according to BCA.
Thanks to BCA’s strict regulations and thorough inspections, similar cases of floor collapse or worse still, building collapse, are rather rare occurrences in Singapore.
All building works, except those that are minor and exempted under the First Schedule of the Building Control Regulations, will require plan approval from the Commissioner of Building Control.
With the Building Control Act and the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act, BCA ensures that buildings in Singapore are designed, constructed and maintained to high standards of safety through our building regulatory system. Additionally, they also provide a framework for building owners and homeowners to manage their strata properties.
As investigations by BCA and MOM are currently ongoing, let’s hope that we can get to the bottom of this.
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