Terengganu was once home to the deviant sect called the ‘Sky Kingdom’, but the sky in the state seems to have a thorny relationship with concrete structures.
On Monday night 20th May, just after the Isha’ prayer, the roof of the Kampung Binjai Kertas mosque built in 2007 came crashing down (pic), but before Maghrib (dusk) prayer, several witnesses said they saw two pieces from the structure above giving way.
“After Isha’, the roof completely fell, all in three minutes,” they said and fortunately, there was no casualty.
Terengganu PAS deputy commissioner Muhyiddin Abdul Rashid said the latest mishap was disappointing and had not spared even places of worship frequented daily by the public.
“This kind of buildings should have been given priority,” he added.
Structural accidents are not new in Terengganu, since In 2008, the roof of a school hall in Wakaf Tapai collapsed.
A year later, the newly completed Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin stadium collapsed, in an incident blamed on design fault and sub-standard materials.
The 50,000 seat stadium, built as part of the Terengganu Sports Complex in Gong Badak, was to be the biggest stadium in the East Coast region. The ill-fated stadium saw another collapse while undergoing re-construction work, injuring five workers, early this year.
Since then, the ‘plague’ seemed to spread statewide. In March 2010, it affected Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, a mosque in Taman Tamadun Islam’s convention centre in July 2010, a rest area in Bazar Warisan in 2011 and Astaka Jernih in 2012, and a water tank in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Paka in July 2012.
No culprits have been identified in all the incidents. – HD
