IPOH: The Sungai Pari Towers, around which two sinkholes appeared in a span of one month, are safe for dwelling. State Urban Development and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Chang Ko Youn said Ipoh City Council engineers had inspected the flats and found the structure to be strong.

He said the 15-storey building was on a firm footing and the Mineral and Geoscience Department had started to study the land surrounding the flats.

The department, he added, would be presenting the results of the study to the state government soon. “Ipoh has lots of underground limestone and erosion holes are likely to occur from time to time.

“But high-rise buildings in Ipoh are constructed on a firm footing and will not be affected by sinkholes,” he said when contacted here yesterday.

Chang added that the sinkholes at Sungai Pari Towers could have occurred due to a burst pipe underground. A second sinkhole – which appeared on Feb 2 just 2m away from the first one that appeared a month back – had caused the main road leading to Black A of the flats to cave in.

The 200 residents of Block A were distressed because the sinkhole, measuring 3m by 2m and 1m deep, appeared near the ground floor units.

After learning that the building was structurally sound, shopkeeper K. Kumar, 47, whose house was nearest to the sinkhole, said he would not move out from the flats.

“I am not afraid because I too believe that the sinkhole appeared due to a broken underground pipe near a sewer. “Besides, if the structure of the building is not stable, cracks should have appeared on the walls of my flat unit by now, but it is not so,” he said.