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Panel falls from top floor of high-rise building in Sydney's CBD

Published: May 1 2017 - 5:40PM

A panel has fallen from the top floor of a high-rise building in Sydney's CBD and landed with an "almighty bang", raining shards of glass onto a busy intersection at lunch time, witnesses say.

The incident occurred at the corner of Market and Sussex streets in the city just after midday.

Nicholas Rugg said he was standing at the lights waiting to cross the road when the panel fell from the top of the Allianz building and crashed onto the roof of the Fitness First gym below.

He said the panel hit the gym with an "almighty bang" and glass sprayed over the road and onto the roofs of cars waiting at the lights. Another witness claimed that small shards of glass hit a number of people.

No one was seriously injured and a NSW Ambulance spokesman said paramedics were not required.

Mr Rugg said he was standing across the road from the building and could clearly see what had happened, but people closer to the building were confused by the sudden bang.

"I imagine the people inside Fitness First would have heard a really loud bang on the roof," he said.

He said a number of cars were waiting at the lights at the time.

"I guess it would have been like small hailstones hitting their roofs," he said.

"It's bizarre. Was someone working up there, or did it just fall out? I have no idea. Panels don't just fall off buildings. If they do, then I guess they would be having a hard look at that building."

Another witness tweeted an image of the building with a panel missing.

full window of glass just fell out of high rise on market/Sussex st in Sydney. small shards hit a few people. No one srsly hurt don't think pic.twitter.com/BCz3WyNYtr

A NSW Police spokeswoman said police were not called to the intersection.

In a statement, Charter Hall - a property group that own the building at 2 Market Street - said they would investigate what happened.

"The safety of the community and our tenants is our number one priority and we are currently investigating the cause of this incident," a spokesman said.

"While local authorities did attend to the incident there were no reported injuries to any members of the public."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/content/adaptive/smh/nsw/panel-falls-from-top-floor-of-highrise-building-in-sydneys-cbd-20170501-gvw9sb.html