31.05.2013

Another crane fatality on India’s monorail

A man was crushed under a mobile -tractor type- crane this morning in Mumbai, India. The local media is full of dramatic reports of a crane crashing down/collapsing.

We understand however that the man, Mohammed Hamid Sahee Alam, 21, was guiding the load that the mobile crane was pick & carrying, when his foot was caught under the cranes front wheels, he tripped and fell and was then run over by the crane.

The crane operator, an employee of Kumar Infrastructure, immediately fled the scene and now has a charge of negligence lodged against him.

Quite different from the headlines, although still tragic and another indication of the poor safety procedures at the numberous mass transit job sites in India at the moment.

Vertikal Comment

The safety authorities in India see completely oblivious to the shocking safety record of what should be standard setting projects. As soon as anything like this occurs the crane operator is immediatley blamed while more senior managers are left well alone.

It is hardly surprising that any time something like this happens, the operator's natural reaction is to 'leg it'. The Indian crane industry needs to stand up and be counted over this issue and stop waiting for the politicians to do something. Regulation or minimum standards prepared by the industry itself are bound to be better than anything the govenment is likely to do. And hopefully it will come into effect a great deal faster.