Sunday, 9 April 2017 | MYT 10:05 PM
Shopping mall in KL forced to close early due to power outage\
PETALING JAYA: A shopping centre in Kuala Lumpur was forced to close early due to an unexpected power outage, leaving visitors stuck in a traffic jam lasting more than an hour in the mall's basement carpark and roads in the vicinity.
The shopping mall, located in Jalan Cochrane Kuala Lumpur, closed at 3pm Sunday, causing anger amongst shoppers who faced difficulty exiting the building.
"Dear Valued Shoppers, due to power outage, MyTOWN Shopping Centre is reducing its operating hours today and have closed the centre at 3pm," it wrote in a posting on the MyTOWN Facebook page.
"The issue is beyond our control but rest assured that rectification works are underway with close cooperation between our operations team and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB)," it said.
The posting said that MyTOWN Shopping Centre will commence operations as soon as the issue is addressed.
"We apologise for this inconvenience to shoppers and retailers and will provide updates in due course. Thank you," it said.
Later at around 9.30pm, MyTown acknowledged the traffic situation and assured customers that they are working on solving the congestion.
Later at around 9.30pm, MyTown said that they were aware of the traffic congestion and working on solving the congestion.
"MyTOWN Shopping Centre We would like to apologise once again to all our tenants and shoppers, that the traffic situation was not a pleasant one. Rest assured we are doubling our efforts by working very closely with the authorities to ease the traffic at the surrounding area. We are taking this as a learning experience for us to prepare a better action plan in the future," the Facebook status read.
Customer J Fauzi said that she did not see signboards around the building but only guards blocking entry into the mall.
"You have to stop and ask the guard, and only then they say that the mall is closed," she said, adding that she was caught in the area for 45 minutes due to the traffic congestion.
Shopper Chengmun Kok, who was among shoppers caught in the gridlock in the carpark, shared his frustration on Facebook at 4.30pm."We are frustrated not because of the closure. It's because firstly, the closure is not communicated properly and we were not asked to leave in batches. Everyone had to leave at the same time. Secondly, no one is at the parking area to control the situation. Cars are stuck for almost an hour by now. Where's the management personnel? Everyone is honking out of frustration because it is a Sunday afternoon, we should be elsewhere enjoying our weekend instead of being stuck in a car park for an hour," he said.
Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/04/09/shopping-mall-in-kl-forced-to-close-early-due-to-power-outage/#PmHsAxpKEeqoK4Uk.99
