[Singapore] Flood waters shut Tanglin Mall

by Esther Ng
04:47 AM Jun 06, 2011

Environmental and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at the basement car park of Tanglin Mall after it was flooded by the heavy morning downpour. Photo by OOI BOON KEONG

Tanglin Mall was also hit by flooding and certain sections had to be closed off. PHOTO COURTESY OF EVA VAN DEN BERG

Photo by OOI BOON KEONG

Workers cleaning up Tanglin Mall as the floods forced shops to close. Photo by OOI BOON KEONG

The ceiling of The Market Place was badly damaged during the flooding. Photo by OOI BOON KEONG

Other photos & videos:

Basement of Tanglin Mall flooded (courtesy of @onglette)

Eng Neo Avenue flooded (courtesy of @Nadya_HutaGalng)

Tanglin Mall flooding (courtesy of @onglette)

SINGAPORE - It looked like a scene straight from the movies. Water cascading down escalators, filling every nook and cranny, then pouring onto the floor below like a waterfall. By 10.30am yesterday, the basement and car parks of Tanglin Mall were in knee-deep water.

At The Market Place, a supermarket in the basement, water seeped into the ceiling and caused a portion of the false ceiling above the checkout counters to collapse.

"It was quite scary - we didn't know where the water came from, it just came so fast," said cafe assistant Annie Tan.

While the shops in the basement bore the brunt of the deluge, the shops on the first level of the mall were not spared either.

Homemaker Linda Tauvel, 39, was having coffee at Starbucks when she noticed an employee mopping some water that was seeping in from under the door.

"There was no panic or drama. Everybody was calm. What I thought was amazing is that the escalators kept going and people kept on using them casually even with all the water flowing on them," she said.

The flood caught the authorities by surprise.

The national water agency Public Utilities Board (PUB) said the extent of the flood was something it had not seen at least in the last 25 years.

The PUB explained that the flash floods were caused by two bouts of heavy rainfall - the first started slightly past 6am.

The second downpour which was more intense at about 10.30am saw about 65 mm of rainfall recorded within 30 minutes.

This downpour was worse than the one on June 16 last year, which recorded about 100 mm of rainfall within two hours.

When MediaCorp arrived at Tanglin Mall at 1pm, the first floor was strewn with muddy sediment and staff in various shops were seen busy mopping their floors.

"The water on this floor was going down to the basement. It was rising rather fast and soon reached our ankles. My colleague and I got scared - we shifted some merchandise to a higher display, then grabbed our bags and left," said Ocean Paradise sales assistant Emily Chow, 22.

Mr Han Lee, who owns Kidz Story, told MediaCorp that he estimates he lost some S$6,000 worth of merchandise and about S$5,000 in fixtures.

Minister for Water Resources and the Environment Vivian Balakrishnan arrived shortly after and toured the mall which had been closed while the clean-up was in full swing.

"Safety was important - we had to cut the electric supply first to assess the situation and then put in place recovery plans and have asked on the tenants to notify their insurers," said the mall's centre director Jenny Ng.

She added that a 3-inch concrete kerb at the switchroom prevented water from entering and knocking out the mall's four transformers.

A staff from the adjoining Traders Hotel told MediaCorp that Grange Road was knee-high in water at around 10am and reckoned that traffic had pushed the water into Tanglin Mall and into the lower deck of the hotel's Cafebiz.

At 4pm yesterday, hotel staff were seen blow-drying the carpet and sweeping the debris.

Down Cuscaden Road, the basement carparks of St Regis Residences were flooded. Water had also entered House number 9, the only bungalow on the street and left a metre-high watermark. The owner's silver BMW 6 series had to be towed away earlier.

While Tanglin Mall was closed, Forum Galleria was buzzing with shoppers. The mall hardly looked like it had been flooded some hours earlier.

Still, takings for the day were affected.

Subway Niche's cashier Madam Sim estimated that the cafe lost around S$600 in those few hours, while Watson's manager totalled some S$2,000 in losses.

Yesterday's downpour caused flash floods in Bukit Timah and MacPherson as well.

At Marina Barrage, up to five gates were operated during the early part of the morning when sea tide was lower, the PUB said. Seven pumps were operated at the later part of the morning to lower the water level at Marina Reservoir, it added.


Forwarded from: http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110606-0000064/Flood-waters-shut-Tanglin-Mall