The Lands and Urban Construction Bureau (DSSCU) announced in a statement on Friday that it demolished a house that had recently collapsed in Chi Lam Village behind the Ruins of St. Paul’s and Na Tcha Temple.
The over 80-year-old house on Travessa Três was severely damaged by a typhoon and a rainstorm on July 21 and August 2 respectively.
According to the statement, the house was declared structurally hazardous and placed under emergency monitoring after its roof, floor slabs, and sections of its external walls had collapsed. A joint inspection committee comprising personnel from the DSSCU and Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) subsequently assessed the structure and classified it as “imminently dangerous”, posing a severe threat to public safety. The authorities subsequently carried out the demolition order.
Chi Lam Vai (茨林圍, aka Chi Lam Chuen - 茨林村) in Portuguese named “Pátio do Espinho” is a 400-year-old, formerly walled village that lies just a street across from the UNESCO World Heritage-protected Na Tcha Temple, one of Macau’s two temples dedicated to the divinity known in Putonghua as Nezha. The village also features a café dedicated to the Taoist tutelary deity whose popularity has immensely risen since the huge commercial and cultural success of the Chinese mainland’s “Ne Zha 2” film earlier this year – the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, and the highest-selling animated film in terms of ticket sales – which stand at over US$2.2 billion.
On July 21, Typhoon “Wipha” was located just 30 kilometres from Macau, with maximum winds reaching level 12. Top Tropical Cyclone Signal No. 10 was hoisted as “Wipha” threatened Macau. During the typhoon, the old house at 10 Travessa Três failed to withstand the storm’s impact and it caved in at about 6 a.m. when “Wipha” was already on its way to Guangdong Province.
On August 2, when the local observatory hoisted the Red Rainstorm Warning Signal, even more damage was caused to the house in the ancient neighbourhood. Villagers reported that the collapsing house nearly injured passers-by during the incident.
The villagers said they were deeply saddened by the collapse of the two-storey house, a place full of memories.
This combination of undated handout photos provided by the Lands and Urban Construction Bureau (DSSCU) on Friday shows the collapsed house in Chi Lam Vai (left photo) and after is demolition.
