Orchard Road woes: Blackout at Wisma Atria on Sunday afternoon

SINGAPORE - It may be the start of a new year, but it is not the end of troubles plaguing Orchard Road. After a series of mishaps in 2015, shopping mall Wisma Atria was the latest casualty, suffering a power outage on Sunday afternoon (Jan 10).

The entire Orchard Road mall was hit by the power outage, some users on social media said, while other conflicting updates on social media said that the blackout was isolated to the basement.

News of the blackout first surfaced on Twitter at around 3.47pm.

Staff from Wisma Atria told the Straits Times that power was restored at 5.30pm.

On Dec 11, a 48-year-old man died after jumping from the fifth floor at Wisma Atria.

A day later on Dec 12, Orchard Central was plunged into darkness after water seepage from a heavy downpour caused a blackout. It took mall staff nearly 12hours to fully restore power then.

The next day, the ceiling of the driveway at Hilton Singapore came crashing down, damaging a black Volvo and white Prime Royal taxi in the process

There were a few fires that hit malls along the main shopping belt in December 2015 too. Lucky Plaza was unlucky when a fire engulfed a restaurant on Dec 19, while there were two other instances of Christmas decorations catching fire in separate incidents.

grongloh@sph.com.sg