SINGAPORE (THE NEW PAPER) - She was preparing ingredients and chatting with her employees at her yong tau foo stall when she heard a crashing sound at the back of the coffee shop at the foot of Block 116 Lorong 2 Toa Payoh on Monday morning (Nov 19).

"We were all frightened," the stall owner, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Teo, 52, told The New Paper in Mandarin.

"I thought someone fell from the building or there was a car accident," she added.

Mrs Teo and her two workers quickly went to check what had happened and found that a window panel had fallen to the ground, right behind her stall.

No one was injured in the incident, which occurred at 7.30am.

Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao reported that the window had fallen from an eighth-storey unit in the block, narrowly missing Mr Hu Lai Fu, 78, a worker at the coffee shop's roasted meat stall.

Mr Hu told Wanbao in Mandarin: "I had just gone to the back to get a pail.

"The window could have hit me. It was a really close shave."

Both Mr Hu and Mrs Teo said it was not the first time this had happened, and Mrs Teo told TNP that it was lucky neither Mr Hu nor her employees were hit.

"If it had hit someone, wouldn't it be terrible?" Mrs Teo said.

Wanbao reported that the eighth-storey flat was being rented out, and a tenant, who declined to be named, said she had opened the sliding window in the kitchen and was shocked when one of the panels fell off.

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When TNP visited the flat in the afternoon, the tenant said she had called the police after the window fell but declined to comment further.

A male tenant told Wanbao that a Housing Board employee visited the flat shortly after the incident to conduct a check and advised the home owner to find a contractor to inspect and re-install the window.

According to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) website, home owners are responsible for checking and maintaining their windows regularly. They may be held liable if a window in their unit falls, the website said.

Those who are not confident of inspecting their own windows can engage an approved window contractor to do so.

Any person who wishes to install or repair windows must also engage an approved window contractor, the website added.