By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Mar 20: The usually very vibrant Kuching Sentral was quiet today even though most bus companies were still operating.
Despite the fact that bus companies were willing to provide the service, the lack of passengers led to each company cutting down the number of trips.
Although there were very few passengers, a cleaner was still working hard to keep the place sanitised.
“We have to do that even though there are not many passengers. We have to do it quite a few times per day,” said a cleaner who preferred to remain anonymous, to DayakDaily today.
The Kuching Sentral Mall was closed, except for the bus terminal, a pastry shop and the supermarket within the mall.
To control the movement of visitors and passengers, the linking entrance between the mall and the bus terminal had also been closed off.
Only two entrances were open in Kuching Sentral – the main entrance leading to the mall’s supermarket and the bus terminal entrance.
Other stringent measures applied by the mall management in containing the Covid-19 outbreak, included making it compulsory for customers to wear facemasks before entry despite only the supermarket and a pastry stall still in operation.
Upon entering the mall, only 10 customers were allowed to shop at any one time. If there were already 10 customers shopping in the supermarket, the rest of the customers will had to wait outside.
According to the supermarket staff, business remained good even though there were significantly less customers.
“Business is okay because when people buy, they buy in bulk. I think this is because they don’t want to come out so often, so once they buy, they buy a lot,” said the staff.
Meanwhile, the junction outside Kuching Sentral which is notorious for traffic congestion, for once, saw smooth traffic flow and no jam at all. —DayakDaily
