Crushed by crane

Three workers were crushed to death and six injured when a tower crane collapsed on offices at a construction site in Sau Mau Ping yesterday.

And one of the injured was only found after spending 7-1/2 hours pinned under wreckage.

Of the six injured, two remain in serious condition and four have been discharged from hospital.

The 59-tonne crane - 10 meters tall with a 30-meter-long arm - collapsed and fell on six shipping container offices beneath it on Anderson Road at 10.49am.

Speaking to the press at around 5pm, Yim Ying-kit, an acting assistant divisional officer of the Fire Services Department, said: "A worker was operating the crane when the incident happened. From the information we gathered at the scene the crane was not under any load at the time."

Rescuers said nine workers at the site were found in the six-meter-long container-turned-offices.

One was killed instantly with his skull cracked and bleeding heavily, according to a senior fireman.

Some of the workers had been trapped under debris at the site. And the one who was rescued after seven and a half hours had been reported as missing when trapped in a crushed container.

Yim said rescuers had also been battling to save a construction worker who was unresponsive while trapped under the debris, with only the bottom half of his body visible.

But the rescue mission was in vain. For at around 6pm rescuers recovered the worker from the debris only for him to be pronounced dead.

A fleet of ambulances rushed seven workers, two of them unconscious, to United Christian Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

One of the seven, who was not breathing and lacked a pulse after sustaining multiple fractures, was subsequently certified dead at United Christian Hospital. Fire Services commanders had deployed 17 appliances and 14 ambulances to the scene before 11am after the giant crane collapsed on the containers, crushing and trapping workers.

Video footage in the immediate aftermath of the collapse shows clouds of dust billowing from the impact and the shocked voice of a witness exclaiming: "The crane fell over!"

Expressing his condolences during a visit to the site, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said authorities were providing support to the affected families and an investigation was under way.

According to a preliminary investigation, though, the accident was caused by a "mechanical issue" at the base of the crane.

But Sun said investigators would be trying to determine whether the crane fell because of an issue with the installation of the crane or whether it involved the crane's design.

Police have also launched an investigation into the tragedy, which has been classified as an industrial accident.

Meantime, a suspension order was issued to temporarily decommission three other cranes at the Anderson Road site.

"The cranes will be subjected to safety checks and the Labour Department will carry out a comprehensive review of legal documents and approval records," Sun said.

The suspension order could only be lifted and the cranes recommissioned once checks are complete and the Labour Department approves, he added.

And authorities would be conducting safety checks on all cranes at construction sites in the SAR.

According to the chief executive of the Association for the Rights of the Industrial Accident Victims, Fay Siu Sin-man, the collapsed crane could have gone out of balance due to a faulty installation.

"According to preliminary inspections, there's a high chance the incident could have been caused by a faulty installation of the crane's base, which caused the entire structure to become unstable," she said,

She added that further checks should include determining whether engineers had complied with safety regulations when installing the contraption.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu noted that the Labour Department had launched an investigation involving safety checks for cranes on all construction sites to make sure construction equipment adheres to regulations.

He also said authorities will provide support and compensation to the families of the deceased and injured. "I offer my condolences to the families of the deceased, and I wish the injured a swift recovery," he said, adding that the Social Welfare Department will provide counseling and financial assistance to those affected by the tragedy.

Engineering constituency legislator Lo Wai-kwok, who is also chairman of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, said the situation of industrial accidents must be "thoroughly improved" through cooperation between authorities and the construction industry.

Some 1,400 public housing flats under the Housing Society are being built on the Anderson Road site for 4,000 people, with completion set for 2025.

In 2007 a tower crane collapse killed two people and injured five at a Causeway Bay construction site where the Mitsukoshi Department Store had stood.

It took firemen eight hours to recover the bodies of two construction workers who were cousins and to save three personnel who had been trapped in the wreckage. Two other workers were injured while trying to escape.