The emergency decision yesterday afternoon was made jointly by The Mall's management and district officials after cracks began to appear on Sunday.

The unannounced decision left more than 300 staff stranded outside the store compound yesterday morning, triggering a small-scale commotion and later resulting in disturbance calls made to police.

The damage includes major cracks to 10 pillars and smaller cracks to another two pillars on the first floor of the car park building.

The district office's inspection includes a probe into whether the damage was caused by the ongoing authorised construction of another two floors on top of the four-storey building.

There were further problems with flooding in certain areas of the store. An initial announcement by the store said the flooding was caused by the "problematic distribution of tapwater", without further explanation.

The most damaging crack in the car park was 50 centimetres long and exposed a steel frame inside a pillar.

At 3pm, the store management distributed a flyer saying the closure was caused by "an accident during renovation because workers fractured the concrete surface on a pillar to a length of 50 centimetres".

The Mall Group's group general manager Natsamon Vongkittipat said yesterday that though The Mall Tha Phra was to be closed temporarily, the closure should not affect the group's finances.

"We have a number of branches, and on average this should not affect our financial operations," she said.

The group expects to achieve Bt43 billion in total sales this year - up 8 per cent from last year.

The Mall yesterday issued a statement saying the Tha Phra branch would be closed for five days for inspection, which would be carried out jointly with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

 "We still don't know the exact scale of the damage. That will be known after the inspection is completed and then we will know what steps we should take," said a PR officer of the group.

 A number of vendors operating food stalls in the store's food courts rushed to place their fresh food ingredients in refrigerators outside the building after they were denied entry when they arrived at The Mall Tha Phra.

If the structural damage is found to have the potential to cause further risks that could endanger health, life and public property, The Mall is required to correct all the problems within 30 days under a 1979 law.

The entrances to the store compound were blocked with steel barricades while all entries to the car park building were nailed shut with strong wooden boards.