Flooding woes hit Jem again
For the second day in a row, flooding woes dampened shoppers’ mood at Jem mall on April 17, 2015. Photo: Jaslin Goh
SINGAPORE — For the second day in a row, flooding woes dampened shoppers’ mood at Jem mall today (April 17), as flooding from a salad eatery affected nearby shops, and water dripped from its ceiling onto the lower levels of the shopping centre in Jurong.
The flooding occurred at about 1pm at Saladworks, which is on the second floor — hampering shoppers and sales staff from going about with their business, until it was brought under control by the cleaning crew at about 3pm.
According to Lendlease, which manages Jem, initial investigations suggested that the backflow of water was due to a grease build-up in Saladworks’ kitchen wastepipe.
A flushing exercise was conducted on Thursday, but a thorough inspection was scheduled to be undertaken tonight to find out why the problem had persisted.
The backflow — which had water flowing in the opposite direction of its regular flow — entered neighbouring shops, such as Paris Baguette and Podium, making it difficult for shoppers to enter and exit the stores.
Buckets could be seen on the lower level of the mall, to collect falling water. A nearby escalator was also out of service.
Ms Hana Park, who works at Paris Baguette, said: “There was no escalator usage, and the water made it difficult for the customers to leave our shop. The water also made some of our tables unusable. This made us lose a lot of our lunchtime crowd.”
A retail assistant at The Good Old Days, which sells dresses and accessories, said the situation was worse yesterday.
“Today, they blocked the walkway to my store so it was difficult for customers to enter. A little bit of water came in, but they were very efficient in cleaning it up,” she added.
