KUALA BESUT – The body of a worker who was buried alive after a building under construction collapsed at a resort on Pulau Perhentian near here yesterday has been recovered.
Terengganu police chief Datuk Mazli Mazlan was quoted by Bernama as saying that the body of Suparno, an Indonesian in his 40s, was retrieved by a search-and-rescue (SAR) team at about 3.15pm today.
“The body was then taken to the Kuala Besut jetty before being transported to the Forensic Unit of the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital for an autopsy.
“The corpse was already smelling foul as the victim was trapped under the rubble for more than 24 hours,” he said.
Mazli extended gratitude to the SAR team involving 83 personnel from various agencies, saying the search has now ended.
Seven construction workers were trapped in the rubble after the restaurant building gave way but six of them survived.
Four of the victims managed to crawl out of the rubble on their own while two others were rescued.
Those who escaped have been identified as a Malaysian named in media reports only as Leong; Mohd Eunuh Hamid Husson, Shamsul Alam Abdul Sukur, and Mohd Rafiq (all Rohingya from Myanmar); and Indonesians as Jamil and Ramli.
The incident is said to have happened at about 4.30am when all the workers were asleep.
Earlier today, Besut District Council president Mohd Sukeri Ibrahim was reported to have revealed that the three-storey building was being constructed illegally since the Movement Control Order period in 2020.
It had failed to get approval on various fronts.
A meeting of the council’s one-stop centre on September 12, 2021 had decided to reject the applications approval of building plan and planning permission, submitted the month before.
The resort’s operator also failed to submit and get policy approval from the Economic Planning Unit for the project, he added.
The Besut District Council had also received a technical review from the Fire and Rescue Department which did not give its approval for the architectural plan.
Rozak said that the project supervisor, Liew Sin Fatt, informed police that he heard a loud noise at the time of the incident and upon rushing out of his office about 30m away saw that the building had collapsed.
“Liew said it was still dark and they could not find the workers among the rubble.
“Police set up a control centre at the scene at 9am,” Sukeri said. – The Vibes, November 10, 2023
