This time round, the ceiling on the first level of the mall fell to the ground last night and a water pipe burst, causing a flood. Luckily, it happened slightly after 10pm and only 3 persons were injured. Otherwise, it would have been disastrous.
As far as I could remember, this is the first time that I heard of the ceiling of a shopping mall falling off. And as usual, the incident was on social media and there were comments about this building is CURSED and speculation of poor quality construction in its bid to open as soon as possible. (You can read my article on what happened on their opening day here)
Indeed, the building has been very SUAY (meaning having bad luck in Hokkien).
The opening was delayed due to fire safety issue. Last month, thousands of shoppers were evacuated after a car caught fire in the basement carpark. And three employees manning a counter at the mall's NTUC FairPrice Xtra store suffered burns when a deep fryer caught fire.
So far, there's no investigation results about how and why the car and deep fryer caught fire. Are there inherent defects in the car and fryer? Or is it due to safety issues at the carpark and power outlet for the fryer? And we don't know what caused the ceiling to collapsed until investigation is done.
But if you think about it, such things can happen anywhere (though I can't say the same for ceiling collapsing). You know of businesses not allowed to start operations due to failure to meet safety requirement. You hear of car catching fire while on the road or in carpark. You hear of people getting injured at work. It's unfortunate that these mishaps happened at JEM and got picked up and amplified.
The tenants now worry that their businesses will be affected by the strings of mishaps. On the other hand, Yahoo reported that people were standing there and taking photos despite staff asking them to evacuate. It seemed a lot of people were quite excited by what had happened and were joking about it.
The shopping mall's management has a lot more work to do now.
Repairing the affected areas and making sure the whole mall is safe before opening again. Follow up with the injured and tenants and possible medical claims or rental rebates for businesses affected. Rebuilding public's confidence in them and getting people to come back. And finding out what caused the mishap.
The only thing they do not need to do is publicity.
So what can we learn from this?
Because accidents happen, do not take safety for granted. And never compromise on safety.
Let's say you build swimming pool for private homes. If your client has little kids at home, do you make sure that your pool is designed in such a way that the owner will be alerted if the kids fell into the pool? Or do you have precautionary measures for the owners? If you sell food, are you aware of any allergies that some people may have towards certain type of ingredients? And if you sell something, will it be hazardous to the elderly or children? Think more than just the users.
Photo Source : Straits Times