Jaya Supermarket Tragedy: I Heard The Loudest Thundering Sound Of My Life, Said A Resident

I Heard The Loudest Thundering Sound Of My Life, Said A Resident

PETALING JAYA -- "It was the loudest thundering sound of my life and my entire house was shaking," said a resident who witnessed the former Jaya Supermarket building in Section 14, collapse at about 5pm Thursday.The incident saw seven victims buried under the rubble while the bodies of four were extricated yesterday and Friday by a search and rescue team.A retiree Azlan Ahmad, whose house is situated next to the collapsed building which once housed the popular Jaya Supermarket said: "It was like an earth quake measuring 5 magnitude on the Richter scale when the incident happened at 5pm yesterday.

"When it happened, I was watching television in my house. When I heard the loud noise I immediately ran out to see what had happened but I could hardly see anything from where I was standing, even my cars (parked in compound) were not visible due to the billowing white dust."When I looked outside the whole area was covered with the white dust," Azlan who stays in a double storey terrace house at Jalan 14/24 here told Bernama today.Azlan said he was even considering filing a claim for compensation from the contractor because he believed the incident was caused by human error since the building was already in danger of collapsing last week.

"Demolition works were not carried out according to proper procedures. They were using excavators to knock down the walls and that was a cause for the instability of the building. I had even told my wife that the building may collapse anytime," he said."This is because they used two big excavators on top of the building and slamming the floors and walls of the building in order to break them."This unbearable noise starts from 8.30am to 7pm everyday. Even now after the building has collapsed, one can see that the two big excavators are on top of all the debris. This could be the biggest possibility causing the building to collapse," he said.Though residents were uneasy with the loud noise, nobody protested because the project was approved by the Petaling Jaya City Council, he said.Meanwhile, Tan Kim Sah, 58, who stays about 30m from the collapsed building said he too heard the loud noise and rushed to see what had happened but could only see white smoke."I have stayed here since 1960 and was able to see the building rise and collapse," said Tan who runs a food stall nearby.

Article taken from Bernama 30/05/09 1.24am

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My comment: It was kinda sad to learn that the building just collapse because of human error. It also causes fatalities among human where so far 4 had been killed and it would be more. In future, the contractors must be given some strict guidelines before they allow their workers to work into the building especially high rise and high risk building. Always, Malaysians never learnt about their mistakes and it just happened. Life must go on.........................