Cordoned off: A motorist passing by the partially collapsed building which housed the famous salted chicken shop.
IPOH: The famed salted chicken here is in the headlines again with the partial collapse of a shop that sells the poultry baked in salt and Chinese herbs.
There are at least 10 other shops selling salted chicken in Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar, still known to locals as Osborne Street or Lau Lin Kai (Durian Street).
The Ipoh City Council has had plans to upgrade Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar to enhance the place in view of its tourist attraction.
The RM3.5mil project, which started last month, was to upgrade the drains, resurface the roads and install street lights there.
Following Saturday’s incident, the road which also has many popular chicken with beansprout restaurants, was rather quiet yesterday morning.
Some shop owners claimed that the drainage works carried out by the council has affected their business slightly.
The underground works led to one of the pillars giving way at the Happy Delicious Salted Chicken shop in Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar.
Recounting the incident, shop owner Jane Chew said she had prayed that the building would not collapse when the drilling work began but the inevitable happened a day later.
“My son’s room collapsed. Thankfully, he wasn’t sleeping there. Six of my children were upstairs when the incident happened but none of them was injured,” said Chew.
“When they first started drilling the ground, we were scared. The council workers tried to insert a culvert but it didn’t fit. The next day they drilled deeper and it collapsed,” Chew, 42, told reporters after removing some of her family belongings from the shop yesterday.
Chew said that council officials would be meeting her today and also conduct checks on the building.
“My hope is for a swift solution and also giving us a fair compensation,” said Chew, who has been operating the shop since 2007 after her husband’s death.
A manager of another nearby salted chicken shop, David Kong, 20, said that some of the buildings were at least 100 years old.
“So it’s no surprise that some of the owners are worried that the drilling works could lead to cracks,” he said.
A statement from the council said site investigations showed the soil structure at the area was quite soft and it caused the already dug soil to be unstable.
To avoid similar incidents, the council said it changed the design by shifting the drain position between 1.5m and 2m from the building border so that future drilling would not cause any soil erosion or damage to the building.
The council had also urged the contractor to conduct prevention and repair works immediately, including cordoning the area for public safety, said the statement.
