Sydney Olympic Park residents evacuated amid concerns building may collapse
Up to 3000 residents have been evacuated from multiple buildings at Sydney Olympic Park amid loud "cracking noises" being heard within the recently-completed Opal Tower apartment building, sparking fears of a collapse.
An emergency operation launched on Monday afternoon remains in place, with an exclusion zone set up that includes the train station and neighbouring apartment buildings as engineers, firefighters and paramedics entered the building to assess its structural integrity.
"It’s not going to be done in minutes, hopefully it doesn’t take much longer than hours," said Fire and Rescue NSW spokesman Greg Wright as the assessment got under way on Monday evening.
Concerns were raised over the new 33-storey residential building on Brushbox Street, next to Australia Avenue, at about 2.45pm.
A number of residents fled the building after hearing "cracking noises" throughout the morning, police said in a statement.
Fire and Rescue NSW and police attended the scene and after establishing the presence of a crack on Level 10 of the building, evacuated the remainder of the residents, setting up a 250m exclusion zone.
Police said engineers had informed them the building had moved 1-2mm but it was unclear whether further movement had occurred or would potentially occur.
In addition to the exclusion zone, water and gas have been shut off and the tower was being isolated from the power grid as engineers were sent into the building to assess the structural integrity, Mr Wright said.
"Fire and Rescue have deployed laser building monitoring equipment to check for movement," he said.
"Engineers have indicated that the building may have moved up to two millimetres."
Residents from nearby properties were also evacuated from the area.
Meriton, the operator of the nearby Botania building, told residents in an email that as "there is a potential for the tower to collapse, a 1km radius has been evacuated".
Botania resident Roman Teslyuk, 26, said he and his wife Christina, 27, were on their way home from lunch when they noticed all roads were blocked off and police were guarding the entrance to their own building.
"We had a dog in the apartment," he said. "The cops at the entrance said if it’s a child they would get it out but if it’s a dog they wouldn’t."
The couple were told to expect to wait 1-4 hours, but that it could be as long as "a couple of days" before they can go back inside, depending on the verdict from engineers.
Meanwhile, police were documenting children from a nearby childcare business as they were taken from the scene. A total of 55 children were evacuated to another building before being released to their families.
An evacuation centre has been set up for residents at the Royal Agricultural Society Centre, with welfare services on hand to assist with rehousing
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...ns-building-may-collapse-20181224-p50o4b.html
