IPOH: Residents of Sungai Pari Tower flats here are feeling a sense of deja vu after a second sinkhole appeared in their area – just a month after the Public Works Department filled up the first sinkhole.  

The second hole, which appeared on Wednesday, was just 2m away from the first one that had caused the main road leading to the flats in Block A to cave in. 

The 200 residents of the Block A flats are distressed because the latest sinkhole, measuring 3m by 2m and is1m deep, appeared beside the road near the ground-floor units. 

Shopkeeper K. Kumar, 47, whose house was nearest to the sinkhole, said he was surprised to see a crowd of people standing around his flat when he came home after sending his children to school on Wednesday. 

“I was stunned to see a sinkhole right under a part of my flat. 

SCARY FIND: Kumar (left) and other residents of the Sungai Pari Tower flats in Ipoh examining the sinkhole on Wednesday. Kumar was especially stunned because the new sinkhole was right under his flat unit.

“There had been no noise and no one had heard anything. I don’t know what could have caused it,” he said. 

Another flat resident, 56-year-old M. Letchumy, believed the sinkholes were indirectly caused by the Dec 26 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. 

“I’ve lived here for 13 years and this kind of thing has never happened before. The first sinkhole had appeared immediately after the disaster. 

“We are scared. It’s difficult to sleep now as we worry if the whole block might collapse,” she said. 

Perak MIC chairman and Consumer Affairs and Unity committee chairman Datuk G. Rajoo, who visited the scene, said he would ask the mayor and state government to look into repairing the latest sinkhole. He said he would also ask that further checks be carried out to determine if other places were in danger of erosion or having sinkholes. 

Ipoh city councillor Thangasvari Suppiah said the entire drainage system should be refurbished as the flats were already 40 years old.