Residents from 131 apartments have been evacuated after a 'large crack' appeared in the Sydney building.

Stressed apartment owners from the troubled Mascot Towers were last night shown shocking photos of “major cracking” that's appeared in the last two days.

The photos exclusively provided to news.com.au show the continued deterioration of the Sydney building, which has continued to crack since residents were evacuated despite engineers saying the building had stabilised in a new report.

Apartment owners attended an excruciatingly long four-hour meeting at the Holiday Inn in Mascot last night that included long, detailed speeches from lawyers and a team of engineers representing the strata company that manage the deteriorating building.

Many walked out of the meeting early with looks of anger and disgust on their faces.

“It was a nightmare,” a woman said as she left the lengthy meeting.

Owners left confused, and with few answers, saying they were given no real timeline of when they could return to their homes.

Amid the chaos, residents were given information from engineers about the state of their building, including photos of “major cracking” that has continued over the “last two days”. Residents voted in the overwhelming majority to fork out over a million dollars to raise a strata levy to pay for remedial works to save the faltering building, with owners saying they felt like they “had no choice”.

Continued fees have also been flagged to the residents, with the cost of a “slip beam” somewhere in the vicinity of $5 million.

The Mascot Towers precinct has at least two different defect sites, news.com.au understands. The strata company has been aware of one of these for more than two years.

The other, more dangerous defect was noticed in the past four weeks. Its “rapid deterioration” led to tenants and residents losing their car spaces while engineers installed emergency props in the building’s carpark in a desperate attempt to stabilise the building.

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But residents were evacuated nine days after these measures were taken, last Friday, when they were notified via email the building was no longer safe to occupy.

There is no conclusive evidence as to the cause of the instability.

“There’s not much that can really be done except raise the special levy of a million dollars, which has been granted,” said John Higgins, from MyPlace realtors, who represents many of the owners.

“We’ve got jacks under there now. We’ve got a couple of photos (of the damage). There’s major cracking. We’re talking 25ml that it’s cracked over the last two days,” he said at the end of the meeting.

“There was about 95 per cent of people (who) agreed tonight to spend a million,” Mr Higgins said.

Before the meeting, Mr Higgins said his primary focus was to rehabilitate the building in a timely fashion and get answers for the apartment owners.

But he said he left last night’s briefing “disappointed”, echoing the frustrations of many who felt they were put in an impossible position.

“I felt there was a lot of talking and not much action. It’s hard for those owners. It’s a daunting task what’s ahead of them,” Mr Higgins said.

“The building itself … they’re just going to monitor it and make sure it’s deemed safe. That’s the best outcome they can get.”

Mr Higgins noted the lack of government representation at the meeting.

“There was no representation of Gladys (Berejiklian) and the Premier (herself) didn’t attend, which was quite disappointing,” he said.

“I think for a matter of this size, it’s so important that she be there.”

Mr Higgins said he would have liked a “timeline” on how long the assessment process would take, and the current situation — where owners have been asked to reconvene in a week’s time and given an uncertain time frame of three to four weeks for re-entry — was not good enough. He also said the million-dollar levy was just the beginning for owners.

“I’ve come out disappointed and my owners will be disappointed,” he said.

“A million dollars is just to start us off. They talked about a $5 million rectification of the slip beam that’s there. And they’re getting quotes, there’s three quotes that’s gone out to determine that.

“There is no choice. If a year goes past and the building is deemed not habitable, then you lose your insurance, and you’ve got a building that is not insured.”

Some of the owners have set up a Gofundme page in the hope of helping them raise the one million dollars, saying the residents of the troubled towers “have fallen victim to the massive failings of the government”.

NAB today announced that customers affected by the evacuation will have their mortgage payments frozen for six months, and will be given special financial assistance and offered support by the bank.

Saying the customers faced “extremely difficult circumstances” NAB Chief Customer Officer, Consumer Banking, Mike Baird, said the apartment owners would be offered a raft of assistance by the bank, including specialised support and reversal of their interest fees.

“We are actively contacting customers to let them know they are able to access a range of support and services immediately,” Mr Baird said.

“This includes one-on-one specialised support by our dedicated NAB Assist team, home loan payment relief for up to six months including interest fee reversal and assistance with other accounts they have with us.

Engineers believe the building is beginning to stabilise. The findings, however, require more investigation by the specialists, who told residents in a report they’ll need one more week “at the minimum to provide findings that have more substance”.

The troubled building has reportedly had structural issues in the past that were dealt with by solicitors, and these legal battles have voided the apartment owners’ claims to compensation in the eyes of the insurer, at this stage.

Photos of the damage from engineers, provided to news.com.au, show three major sites where joints have become exposed, as well as leaking around the emergency props placed in the carpark.

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Last night’s extraordinary meeting detailed the damage to the building and outlined $1 million in compulsory levies to fix the points of damage.

The proposed works are for the “structural slab expansion joint at the ground, upper ground and first floor slabs”, according to documents provided to news.com.au. Engineers proposed the partial demolition of existing slabs along perimeters that join the buildings, as well as reinstating the slabs and the installation of new joints where they have been degraded.

Engineers also reportedly discussed waterproofing. Photos handed to news.com.au by one of the apartment owners appears to show leaking and flooding in the carpark, where emergency props were installed days before residents were evacuated.

Other immediate works are discussed in the documents, including the removal and reconstruction of planter boxes and landscaping to the first-floor slab. Other features on the first floor need to be overhauled, waterproofed and retiled, including the private courtyards and external decks. Parts of the building’s masonry also need to be removed and reinstalled, according to a source.

Apartment owners now face another meeting in a week’s time, with engineers continuing to monitor the building. At this stage they don't think it will collapse but have not been able to deem it stable enough for residents to move back into.