MELAKA: Authorities are still looking for the owner and contractor of the unfinished three-storey building here that collapsed on Friday (Oct 10).
State housing, local government, climate change, and disaster management committee chairman Datuk Rais Yasin said neither of them have come forward to claim responsibility after the building at Jalan Bukit Senjuang in Bandar Hilir collapsed, killing a construction worker.
“The authorities will continue to trace them to enable us to take punitive action as the construction was carried out illegally with no submission of a building plan,” he told reporters after visiting the site on Saturday (Oct 12).
He was accompanied by Melaka Fire and Rescue Department’s deputy director R. Saiful Iswandy R. Hassan during the visit.
Rais said both the owner and the contractor commissioned to complete the building had seriously violated the law and standard operating procedures by erecting an illegal structure.
He said the authorities have also not received any complaints from the nearby residents on the illegal construction while the site was covered with high zinc fencing.
Earlier, the Melaka Historic City Council (MBMB) mayor Datuk Shadan Othman confirmed that the partially constructed building is an unlawful structure.
Shadan said that the site has been sealed until the investigation is fully completed as well as the issuance of a stop work order and MBMB is in the process of issuing a maximum compound of RM50,000 to the owner.
On Friday (Oct 11), the deceased, a Bangladeshi construction worker, died after a structure of a building at a construction site collapsed.
The body of the victim was retrieved by rescue personnel from the rubble at around 12.20am on Saturday.
Two other victims, all from Pakistan, were pulled out from the site and taken to the Melaka hospital for treatment.
