11.07.2007

Hong Kong update

Details on yesterday’s fatal tower crane accident at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong are still sketchy, there were two cranes on the sight, a larger luffing jib model and the 60 metre high top-slewer that collapsed.
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The top of the tower crane

Some reports say that the fallen crane was being dismantled, while others suggest it was carrying out a lift. What is clear is that the tower buckled either because it no longer had the original support the 20 storey tower had been reduced to nine floors. Or it was being dismantled out of sequence.

The two men who died, Tam Sing, 51, and his cousin Tam Cheung-tai also in his 50s, were confirmed dead after firemen pulled them from the wreckage. Both are reported as being crane operators.
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The far side of the building from the tower

It took 110 firemen over five hours to extract the dead and injured, amazingly a number of them used a skip as a form of access to stabilise the crane. This in a city that has plenty of sophisticated access equipment.

The secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said the Labour Department would begin an investigation today and that it would inspect all of Hong Kong's high rise construction sites with similar cranes, of which there are several hundred, to make sure they are safe.
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The cracked tower, but look at the access method