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Child-safe high-rise design alert after tragic 75m fall
The tragic death of an unsupervised four-year-old child who fell 75m from the 21st floor of the luxury Havelock City apartment complex has
The young victim. Pix by Anuradha Bandara
thrown a spotlight on building safety codes and regulations as well as parental responsibility.
“Eighty per cent of the investigation has concluded,” said the Officer in Charge of Wellawatte police, Inspector Frederick Woodler. “Further investigations are made to see whether the girl fell or whether she was pushed. There is still no evidence that she was pushed.”
A few hours before her death on Saturday last week (January 24), Shafka Naushad had been playing with her new gift, a pink tricycle, on the grassed play area on level two of the apartment complex on Havelock Road, Colombo 6.
She, her mother Shafna, eight-year-old sister Shamla and three-month-old brother Ibrahim had come from Mabola, Wattala two days ago to visit her grandmother who lived in an apartment on the 1th floor.
Around noon, Shamla had complained of thirst and taken her younger sister up to the 11th floor flat for a drink of water while the mother and brother remained in the play area.
CCTV footage shows the youngsters getting into the lift and the elder sister getting out on the 11th floor, asking her younger sister to hold the elevator until she arrives. Shamla apparently takes Shafka’s hand and places her finger on the “Open Doors” button and leaves the lift. However, the elevator door shuts and the CCTV shows a lonely Shafna taking her hand off the button and darting to the door and struggling to open it. The footage apparently fails to reveal what happened next.
Concerned over the delay, the worried mother went to the 11th floor to be told that Shafka was missing.
“My wife had then desperately informed Security and searched all the floors. We saw a slipper of Shafka’s near an emergency door that was slightly open. Then a resident on the fourth floor informed us that a small girl had fallen onto the play area. It was our girl,” said the shocked father A. Hameed Naushad, 37.
He said all that remains are memories of a sweet girl petted by all in the family and her little nursery bag, shoes, toys and scribbled drawings lying across the verandah of their house.
“When we checked that night most of the steel emergency exit doors were open,” said said Isham Bashirudeen, Shafka’s uncle, who owns the 11th floor apartment and lives there with his mother.
“They lead either to the [emergency] stairs or to the outside.
“If the security guards were alert they would have definitely seen a child struggling alone in an elevator. There are many children in this apartment complex,” Mr. Bashirudeen pointed out.
Grieving: The victim’s father and sister
The only evidence that shows the little girl was on the 21st floor was a slipper near the emergency exit on that floor, said Kalubowila Hospital’s Inquirer into Sudden Deaths, Coroner Upali Perera.
The emergency door leads to a tiny balcony. It is surmised that Shafka could not or did not (she might have panicked when she was left alone) keep the “Open Doors” lift button pressed and that the doors closed before he could get to them. It appears that the lift rose to the 21st floor and that Shafka got out there and somehow found her way onto the balcony from which she fell to her death.
Sri Jayawardenapura Medical Faculty Judicial Medical Officer Dr. Ruchira Nadeera who conducted the postmortem on the child at the Colombo South (Kalubowila) Teaching Hospital, said death had been caused due to head injuries and that there had been internal bleeding from other injuries.
Memories: A toy belonging to the victim
He said death had taken place within 15-20 minutes.
Questions remain about how the slightly-built child could have pushed open the heavy emergency door even if it had not been securely closed, and why and how she climbed over the balcony wall that was higher than her head. A metal bar was fixed to the top of the masonry wall.
“At that age, a child’s body is light and flexible,” said Coroner Perera. “The wall was about four feet high with a 1.5-inch-thick bar. The girl was three feet, four inches tall. There is a possibility that she lost her balance while trying to hang onto the bar,” he said.
The Sunday Times learns that the police are waiting for the full report of the Scenes of Crime Officer (SOCO). They said it had been impossible to obtain usable fingerprints as many people had touched the bar on the balcony wall.
Experts said the building and construction sector should make child safety and health as important as fire and electrical safety regulations.
“The design and construction of apartment complexes where families reside should make the safety of children top priority,” said Dr. Nayanthara de Silva, senior lecturer at the Department of Building Economics of the University of Moratuwa.
She said the country needed more safety professionals, especially in the construction industry.
General Manager of Condominium Management Authority, K.H.A. Upali said it was compulsory for all apartments and building complexes to adhere to safety and security measures.
An official from the apartment complex said this is the first time such an incident had been reported and that building management is supporting police investigations.
“We have provided all the footage and allowed police to conduct their investigation,” he said.
OIC Woodler said that parents with younger children should be more attentive and make sure they are kept out of harm’s way.