Chief minister Lim Guan Eng said he hoped the developer of the project, Taman Sri Bunga Sdn Bhd, would use that time to resolve all issues with the buyers.
“If not, the state government will intervene on behalf of the buyers,” he said in a press conference here today.
In the incident last Saturday, a landslide at the project site killed 11 workers – a local, four Bangladeshis, two Indonesians, three Myanmar nationals and one Pakistani.
During the 8.57am incident, all the deceased were working at the project construction site.
Lim said he hoped the Penang Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate the landslide would uncover the cause of the landslide and penalise those responsible.
He added that the Penang City Council (MBPP) had lodged a police report on the incident.
“We leave it to the police as well as any other parties including the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to conduct an investigation and endorse the incident as an accident at a construction site,” he said.
Meanwhile, MBPP Mayor Maimunah Mohd Sharif, who was present at the press conference, said the Department of Urban and Rural Planning had no objections to the project development in the area.
She said in a letter dated Dec 11, 2014, the department said in principle, it had no objections to any application for a permit to build a 53-storey block of affordable flats comprising two 38-storey towers, a 12-storey parking lot podium and a single-storey community facility at Lot 4510, Mukim 18, Lorong Lembah Permai 3, Tanjung Bungah.
“The Mineral and Geoscience Department also had no objection to the project on that particular location,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Penang state government was making every effort to locate the families of two Myanmar victims who died in the landslide.
State Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said the remains of the two victims were still at the Penang Hospital mortuary.
He said the committee was working together with the Myanmar Embassy in Malaysia and the housing project developer to locate the two victims’ families.
“The state government has given one month to the Myanmar embassy to claim the bodies before it takes alternative measures.
“Meanwhile, we are arranging for the remains of the five Bangladeshi nationals who perished in the same tragedy to be sent home. The process is expected to be completed by this weekend,” he told reporters here today.
Phee said the state government felt it crucial to contact the families of the two Myanmar victims to ascertain whether they were Muslim or Buddhist.
“If they were non-Muslim and their remains are not claimed after one month, we will arrange a cremation and keep the ashes in a temple. When their families come, we will hand over the ashes to them.
“If the victims were Muslim, we will refer the case to the Penang Islamic Religious Council for the burial arrangement,” he said.