WHERE IT OCCURRED: Sim showing photographs taken at the site of the 2.15am incident.
KUCHING: The fatal road accident involving a Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) personnel whose car plunged some 30 feet into an open sewer construction site early Wednesday morning was beyond the control and expectation of Hock Seng Lee Consortium (HSL).
The company, which is in-charge of the Kuching City Central Wastewater Management System project, has taken various preventive measures such as putting up safety barriers and barricades to ensure that all sewer construction sites adhere to safety standards and specifications as well as surveillance by the company’s safety patrol team.
“Unfortunately, what occurred that fateful night was beyond our control and we are leaving everything to the police to carry out investigations and find out the root cause of the accident,” HSL assistant construction manager Sim Yih Seng told a press conference here yesterday.
Despite the safety measures, he said that such accidents occur due to numerous factors such as negligence and low level of awareness on safety on the part of members of the public while passing by the project sites.
“We do not understand how the victim drove his car and crashed through the barricades surrounding the sewage site and plunged into the open sewer as the site is located at the centre of a road island where cars are not expected to enter,” Sim said, adding that the distance between the site and the road shoulder was 7 to 8 metres away.
It was reported that 24-year-old Paul Primus was exiting Jalan Haji Taha at 2.15am when his Proton Saga struck the curb of a roundabout near Jalan Datuk Ajibah Abol and ricocheted back across the road, before smashing through the protective gates surrounding the site and plunging to the bottom of the sewer filled with water.
Meanwhile, Sim noted that construction works on the wastewater management system were on schedule with the first phase of the project expected to complete by next year.
“However, this is an ongoing project aimed at clearing out all our waste so that it will not be discharged to the river, which is what is happening right now and polluting our rivers.
“We have to do this now to cater to our growing population,” Sim said.