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Lift with faulty door panel at Edgefield Plains suspended

SINGAPORE — The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has suspended the operation of a lift at Block 114, Edgefield Plains after reports of an incident last Friday where the lift continued to move even when one of its car door panels did not close.

SINGAPORE — The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has suspended the operation of a lift at Block 114, Edgefield Plains after reports of an incident last Friday where the lift continued to move even when one of its car door panels did not close.

Pasir Ris Punggol Town Council, which maintains the block, has been told to appoint an independent authorised examiner to inspect, test and certify that the lift is safe for use, the authority said in a statement yesterday.

The suspension, which was imposed last Saturday, will be lifted only after BCA receives the authorised examiner’s report and is satisfied with the findings. “As a safety precaution, BCA will also be conducting checks on the lifts at other blocks within the vicinity,” the BCA added.

A video clip of the lift was circulated online last week, showing the left panel of the lift car open while the lift was moving. The lift lobby doors were shut.

The BCA said its engineers visited the block in Punggol together with representatives from the town council and the lift contractor on Saturday morning and decided to suspend the operation of the lift in the interest of public safety.

On Oct 9 last year, an elderly woman’s hand was severed by lift doors in a freak accident in Tah Ching Road. Madam Khoo Bee Hua, 85, had entered the lift before her leashed pet dog. When the doors closed, the dog was stuck in the lobby with its leash straddled across the lift doorway.

An independent authorised examiner who inspected that lift has found that the safety devices of the lift were working properly that day.

The BCA also noted that there is no guarantee that multi-beam sensors would be “absolutely foolproof” in preventing lift accidents similar to the one Mdm Khoo was involved in because objects that are smaller than the spacing between these beams cannot be detected.

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