NEX ceiling incident caused by water leakage due to ‘plumbing issue’, says mall

Leaking water due to a plumbing fault caused parts of a ceiling at the NEX shopping center in Serangoon to fall on Saturday (Aug 6), said a spokesperson for the mall.

Videos circulating on social media on Sunday showed a hole in the ceiling of Basement 1 at the mall, and bits and pieces of plaster on the floor of Basement 2.

The area where the plaster had fallen was also cordoned off to shoppers.

NEX spokesperson said on Monday that the mall was alerted by a Level 1 tenant to a “water backflow incident” at around 5.55pm on Saturday.

The mall’s onsite operations team subsequently identified a “plumbing issue” originating from the tenant’s floor trap, causing water to spread to the tenant’s retail area and leak down to Basement 1 and 2.

“Contractors were deployed to fix the choke which was resolved by 11pm,” said NEX.

However, remnant water continued to leak down from the unit and affected “some tenants” across Basement 1 and 2.

“For the safety of our tenants and shoppers, we informed affected tenants to suspend operations until the issue (was) fully rectified,” added NEX, while apologizing for the inconvenience caused to tenants and shoppers.

As of Monday, the affected areas have been checked and rectified and Basement 2 is open and accessible to shoppers, said the mall.

In August 2020, a ventilation duct at Shaw Theatres in NEX collapsed during a movie screening, falling across several rows of seats and injuring two people.

Investigations later revealed that this had been caused by overloaded support brackets for the duct, due to the weight of accumulated water.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES