Falling debris closes new mall

A TV reporter holds a piece of metal that fell off the 91st floor of the Taipei 101 building, the highest building in the world, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

About 3,000 people were evacuated from the Taipei 101 Mall yesterday after metal debris from the 91st floor of the adjoining office tower, the tallest building in the world, fell to the ground, injuring four people.

The incident happened at around 10am, while a construction team was using cranes to haul aluminum parts from the 90th floor to the 91st floor of the Taipei 101 tower, which is still under construction. Strong wind caused some parts to blow onto Sungchih Road, Hsinyi Road and the ground around the construction site.

Two construction workers and two passersby were hit by the metal boards and slightly injured. A few cars in the area were also damaged.

Some parts also fell into the Hsinyi Elementary School campus, but no one was hurt.

The Taipei City Government ordered the mall closed for 24 hours. It will resume business at noon today if there are no further safety concerns.

"Although the incident has nothing to do with the mall, we still closed it and evacuated our customers, about 3,000 at the time," said Scott Chen (陳文光), vice president of Taipei Financial Center Crop (台北金融大樓), which owns the 23,000-ping mall and the office tower.

"We regret the inconvenience, and will strengthen the safety measures at the construction site," he said.

The city government fined Taipei Financial Center Corp NT$150,000.

The company said it would suspend construction work for at least three days, but the city government said work could not resume until the site had passed a safety check. It did not say when that might be.

"To ensure there will be no more similar incidents, we have suspended all construction work at the tower in accordance with construction regulations," said Chen Wei-jen (陳威仁), head of the city government's Public Works Bureau. "Meanwhile, for the parts of the building that have already opened, we also asked them to suspend business for a day."

The public works and labor affairs bureaus will check the mall at 10am today to decide whether it should reopen.

"The construction work will be suspended indefinitely until there are no more security concerns," Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said.

Several city councilors warned the city government against rushing to reopen the mall.

Democratic Progressive Party Councilor Lan Shih-tsung (藍世聰) said the mall should not be allowed to reopen until all construction work on the office tower is completed.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Councilor Lai Shu-ju (賴素如) demanded that construction work be suspended until further safety checks had been completed on the mall. Last week, Lai warned the city government of the possible dangers to shoppers in the mall.

Taipei Financial Center Corp would not put an estimate on how much the 24-hour closure would cost the mall's tenants, but it will likely run to tens of millions of NT dollars.

Sogo 101, an 800-ping retail outlet that focuses on cosmetics and female clothing, said its daily turnover since the mall opened was around NT$8 million.

The mall has drawn about 200,000 visitors per day since it opened. Taipei Financial Center Corp hopes it will generate NT$7.5 billion in sales in the first year.