Pedestrians were "missed by centimetres" when a number of wooden slats fell from the roof outside Hobart's Myer store this afternoon, witnesses say.
They described hearing a sound "like a car had backfired" about 1:30pm.
Stephen Osborne was on Liverpool Street when he saw "the canopy of the Myer building fall down".
Mr Osborne said about six or seven wooden slats fell from the roof.
"If anyone had have been directly under the slats, no doubt there would have been serious injuries," Mr Osborne said.
"Imagine the worst scenario if there was a child in a pusher or a baby or something underneath … [they] would have I think sustained serious injury."
Mr Osborne said he saw about eight people walking past at the time.
"One lady was pretty upset. The others were in degrees of shock," he said.
Barry Champion's wife Ying was one of the pedestrians who escaped unharmed, and said it was lucky she was not hurt.
"I gather another couple of seconds and it would have landed on her," he said.
Myer Hobart store manager Kathy Kelly said the safety of customers and team members was her "absolute priority".
"We have been advised by the landlord, who owns and manages the building, that they have a maintenance crew on site assessing the damage," Ms Kelly said.
Kalis Properties, the construction group that managed the redevelopment of Hobart's Myer store which opened last year, has been contacted for comment.
A government spokesman said the Department of Justice was investigating the incident.
