The crisis of SydneyOpal Tower, has left angry residents feeling "helpless and scared" because they may be forced to move back to the building, although investigators have failed to explain why the evacuation took place twice a week.
Owners also lashed out at a director of Ecove, the Opal Tower developer, who said the apartments were "of high quality" and that the cracks found on Christmas Eve "did not reflect the quality of the entire building," the Australian newspaper reported.
The owners called for developers to buy back their properties.
During the second evacuation residents returned to the apartment to pack their bags under a pre-arranged security escort and reported seeing new cracks and damage at various locations in the building.
Photos seen by the Australian newspaper show vertical cracks around the corner of the 12-story apartment and horizontal cracks in green tiles on the 36-story view of the aerial garden.
A spokeswoman for Opal Tower, a design engineering firm at WSP and one of several groups investigating damage to the building, did not respond to questions from the Australian newspaper about the new crack.
"We feel very scared every day," said Vivian Lu, a Chinese resident. She has been staying with a friend of nearby Ermington since she was evicted from her 34th floor apartment last Thursday.
Vivian Lu, third left; her mother Missy, left; husband Eason, left second; and other angry residents of Opal Tower (photo source: Australian newspaper)
Vivian and her husband, Eason, her mother, Missy, and her pet dog, Coffee, live in an apartment in Opal Tower. On Tuesday, she hired a moving company to move beds, sofas and valuable furniture to their home in Ermington. Determined not to return to "living in this building area". Like her, there are residents of another building.
She said: "after two evacuations, without issuing any damage reports, how can they ask us to move back?" If developers and engineers say the building is safe, they should buy back my apartment from me and I`ll give them a 10 percent discount. "
Bassam Aflak, director of Ecove, declined to comment on whether developers were willing to buy back homes from residents. "all efforts are being made to support Icon in bringing people back to Opal Tower and all other issues will be addressed in the future," he said.
Vivian told the Australian newspaper that she is one of nearly 200 Chinese-speaking Opal Tower owners and tenants who have been sharing information updates and further compromised reports on the social app group, which is an important communication tool for many owners. They say they missed updates from builder Icon.
A spokeswoman for Icon told the Australian newspaper that while daily updates were posted to residents via apps and e-mails, "it is possible" that some owners who were not staying at the Icon hotel were not notified.
Yang Wei (Wei Yang, a Chinese resident, said he was "impossible" to bring his five-year-old son, Mason, and his 6-year-old daughter, Marissa, back to their second-floor apartment. Instead of staying in a hotel room arranged by Icon, he moved with his children to his mother`s house near Rydalmere.
Yang Wei (Wei Yang,) and his children (photo source: Australian newspaper)
He told the Australian newspaper that the children had begun to ask him why they didn`t "live at home."
He replied, "our home is not safe." But he was also waiting for an explanation of the damage to the apartment building so that he could explain it to the children.
Pregnant Emily Shen said it would be "very happy" to be able to "take off" the apartment he owns on the third floor.
"buy back my apartment," she said. Do you know what it is like to bear this stress when I`m pregnant? "
(photo source: Web)
Five months pregnant, Emily, her first child, has been staying with her husband in a relative`s home in Hurstville, Sydney`s southern district. Instead of receiving information about the survey, she said she relied on discussions in the social app group to get the latest information.
"I need to know what happened," she said. When I asked for information, no one answered, and I had to pay my mortgage now, and we had a right to know what had happened. You can`t just tell us everything`s safe. We`ve been told twice before. "
