A man narrowly escaped serious injury, an office was destroyed and more than R100 000 of stock was damaged when a huge cement slab, collapsed at Pick n Pay, at Peppergrove Mall on Monday night.
A man narrowly escaped serious injury, an office was destroyed and more than R100 000 of stock was damaged when a huge cement slab, collapsed at Pick n Pay, at Peppergrove Mall on Monday night.
The slab was the floor of both the receiving department and an adjoining office, to the right of the shop's African Street entrance, and formed the roof of the cold room below.
While property owner Rob Beer was reluctant to speculate on the possible cause, he said engineers had been called immediately after the 80 square metre slab, the floor of the store's receiving area for cold stock, had collapsed about 8pm on Monday. According to Beer, the slab is supported by iron beams. He said independent engineers had been appointed to investigate the problem.
Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra Veley said, "The Company expects the value of the stock damage to be in excess of R100 000." The slab collapsed to the bottom of the cold room, destroying not only the stock there, but also an entire office and its contents, including a desk, chair and personal computer.
Grocott's Mail was informed by a member of the public that a truck driver had been on the slab when it collapsed. Veley said the truck driver had not been injured in the incident. While not denying the seriousness of the situation, Beer said, "It's not critical".
On Tuesday morning Beer said they were going to board off the area for security reasons and that delivery trucks were now using another delivery area. Questioned whether the building plans had been approved by the Makana Municipality, Beer confirmed that they had, and an engineer's certificate had been provided.
Makana Municipality spokesperson Thandy Matebese said they were aware of the incident and were awaiting a detailed report from their town planning section to ascertain that the building plans approval and inspection had been carried out correctly.
