Construction workers killed as partially built bridge collapses
This is the second time within the past year a bridge under construction has collapsed in India. What is wrong with their engineers?
At least five people have died and 15 have been injured after a partially constructed bridge collapsed in Delhi, Indian officials say.
A pillar supporting part of the structure collapsed, a spokesman for the Delhi Rail Corporation said.
The men who died were reported to be labourers working on the bridge, part of the city's new metro system.
The accident happened in the early hours of Sunday morning. Rescue crews are checking others are not trapped.
A labourer working on the site said that at least 25 men were working there when a concrete supporting pillar collapsed, Reuters reports.
A worker said that at least 25 labourers were on the site
"Sacks of cement were being taken up. Two to three were taken up and then suddenly the bridge collapsed," Mukesh said.
A police spokesman said the accident happened as workers lifted heavy concrete slabs for the bridge.
One slab slipped, crushing the metal beams of the bridge beneath and rupturing a water pipe.
It is the second accident involving metro construction projects in less than a year.
In October, two people were crushed to death and 12 injured when another bridge under construction collapsed on to a bus and cars below.
This is the second time within the past year a bridge under construction has collapsed in India. What is wrong with their engineers?
I'm not sure we in Canada are in any position to critique other nation's engineers.
This sounds more like a construction accident, which probably has nothing to do with engineering. A slab being lifted slipped. Someone didn't secure the load, or the crane operator exceeded specifications, an uninspected cable could have snapped, or it could have been faulty.
I have recently been trained and certified to operate a bridge crane so I can unload trucks and load our decoiler with 22 ton coils of steel. Fortunately, no one takes exception to my lack of speed, or puts pressure on me to move fast. I ensure everything is perfect when I do a lift.
Not everyone-- in Canada or India-- is fortunate to be able to work in conditions like mine.
Good point. I also winced at the "their engineers" jab.
You are correct about the wording.
I realized that the moment after I posted it.
I wish I could rephrase my first post to read "the" engineers, as opposed to "their" engineers, as I am well aware of fuck-ups by some Canadian engineers. Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge from Vancouver to North Vancouver for example. But I can't change any wording in the first post. What's the reason for this new policy of not being able to do corrections to the first post in a thread.
On the construction sites, which include bridges, that I have worked at, it is usually the engineers that are in charge and directing the show. Either there were incompetent engineering plans being used, or proper safety procedures were not being followed. The problem is it is always the construction workers that usually die when these problems occur. I can guarantee you if the engineers were forced to work out of mobile offices that were on these projects under construction, there would not be anywhere near as many construction workers' deaths occuring. I'm not exonerating the workers because I do not yet know enough details, however there has to be some responsibility for these incidents at the top, whenever people are killed like this. Otherwise we can be legalizing murder on construction projects.
When the Ironworkers and the others that were killed on the collapse of the Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge in BC, besiides the people that died, and their families and friends, who paid the price for this criminality? What happened to the engineers and the owners of the firms that were building the bridge?
I remember the Heron Road bridge collapse disaster in Ottawa many years ago - maybe in the 1960s. I was on site an hour after it happened to offer my assistance. Also another unfortunate construction accident - our next door neighbor's child was killed when a heavy dump truck backed up over him, around 1968 I think.
...however there has to be some responsibility for these incidents at the top, whenever people are killed like this. Otherwise we can be legalizing murder on construction projects.
Well, if anyone wonders what the source might be for the background bitterness and anger that resides in some of my posts it is exactly that.
There's just no accountability at a certain threshold in the professional class.
I mean, doesn't it boil your blood when you hear about how some asshole puts a drinking water intake downstream from the sewage outflow in Kasechewan? For all we know, the same engineer could be designing some infrastructure for your kids right now, instead of being on parole, and unable to continue to misspractice engineering because he or she lost thier certification.
Or, if we leave engineers alone for a second, let's not forget Doctor Smith, the one who made stuff up to put several innocent people in jail for considerable times. Not only doesn't the good Doctor not get charged with anything, as far as I know, he's still licenced to practice medicine.
I mean, holy fuck.
And, there's his boss who was too busy to supervise Smith, but never too busy to cash the paycheque he recieved for doing so. Or not doing so, apparently.
No jail for that dickwad either.
And, in the past I've read about Crowns Attourney being upbraided by judges for withholding exculpatory evidence. No accountability for these very serious criminal acts.
And, currently, we have Crowns Attourney caught red handed breaking the law by spying on prospective jurors. And, no charges have been laid, nor does there seem to be any effort afoot to lay any.
And, of course the Ontario Ombudsman has reopened his investigation of the rubber stamp brigade at the S.I.U., which is supposed to investigate police, who of course, currenty face very little in the way of accountability.
When it comes to worker safety, Ontario has beefed up the Occupational Health and Safety Act to where some offences could include jail time. However, in practice all that is levied are fines.
Seems the act is there to protect people at the top from criminal charges that could result in long jail time as much as it is there to protect workers.
It's not actually a "policy" in the sense that someone sat down and decided it would be a good idea.
It's a matter of babble making do with software that was intended for another purpose, and the rabble honchos not having the will and/or expertise to adapt the software to the specific needs of the forum.
Think of babble as being like a newspaper's website, with the OP being the newspaper article and the rest of the thread being the comments section, where readers can post their reactions. That's what the software was intended for.
Newspaper articles are edited and proofread before they are committed to print, and an electronic copy is posted on the website. The latter is supposed to be an exact copy of the former, without any supplementary editing, and since the former is presumably "perfect" enough to commit to print, no further changes are ordinarily made or required.
Very helpful M Spector and thanks.
I remember the Heron Road bridge collapse disaster in Ottawa many years ago - maybe in the 1960s. I was on site an hour after it happened to offer my assistance. Also another unfortunate construction accident - our next door neighbor's child was killed when a heavy dump truck backed up over him, around 1968 I think.
Link: http://www.biblioottawalibrary.ca/connect/research/local/heron_e.html
excerpt:
Many people who live in Ottawa today are not aware that the Heron Road bridge was the scene of one of Canada's worst construction accidents. No one expected that hot summer day, Wednesday, August 10, 1966, to become a day of disaster and death. excerpt: The Heron Road Bridge Disaster, as it has come to be known, was the worst construction accident in Ottawa's history. Altogether, it took nine lives - the seven workers who died that day, another who died in hospital, and a ninth who died about a month later - and 57 more workers were injured. An Ottawa Citizen reporter wrote that "The debris from the collapse turned the west bank of the Rideau River into a grim steel and concrete coffin."Thanks Boom Boom,
Apparently Canada has had quite a few bridge collapses including;
The bridge near Quebec City had two collapses, one in 1907 and the other in 1916
The Hartland Covered Bridge in 1920
The Peace River Bridge collapse near Taylor in 1957
The Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge in Vancouver in 1958
The Heron Road Bridge in Ottaw in 1966
The bridge near Lucknow in 2007
I'm sure there are others as our infrastructure was literally built on the basis of accepting the lowest bid on contracts and paying out the lowest wages and benefits possible to employees. How many innocent lives have these principles cost?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_disasters_by_death_toll
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By-the-way, here's an update on that bridge tragedy in Delhi.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/a-tragedy-waiting-to-happen/4886...
Most interesting bridge collpase was the tacoma suspension bridge accident. We saw it in highschool physics. It was really impressive as the internet and web content wasn't readily available as it is now. We looked at wave effects and saw how concrete(or perhaps asphalt) could in fact move like a ribbon before turning upside down and falling into the water below. Very interesting also because our very own Ambassador bridge is of simular design.
A little off topic but don't engineers in the states wear a ring made from the metal of the Tacoma bridge as a reminder of their responsability? I know canadian schools give out iron rings for the same reason.
The Canadian engineers I know all wear iron rings. I thought the tradition went back into antiquity (i.e. pre-20th century).
Two construction workers have been killed by falls at Saskatoon construction sites in the last few months. They died building a tacky hotel amid urban sprawl and a tasteless comdo for yuppies. They did not die in vain.
boomerbsg, thanks for that.
Actually I understand the rings provided to the UBC graduating engineers contain material from the collapsed Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge to help remind them of their responsibilities towards their fellow men and women.
My neighbour's son had a fall while building a house in Calgary last year, was in the hospital six months, fortunately okay now, but can't do heavy lifting.
If we compare Canada's neoliberalized economy, which is expected to shrink by 2.3 percent this year, with India's economy clipping along at somewhere around 6.7 percent, we can guess that there is much happening in that country compared to here.
Harper's stimulus is nowhere in sight in a country with a paltry 33 million people. I think accidents are bound to happen in a country where the economy is bustling by comparison. Workers can't be hurt on the job if they are not actually on the job. Workers' safety is probably an issue in India as it is in China.
Iron Rings
The rings given nowadays are made from stainless steel.
The ring ceremony has echoes of Freemasonry.
Here's one engineer's take:
The ring has much lore and history and most engineers look forward their entire degree to getting this symbol of their commitment to the profession of engineering.
While not required of engineers, the ceremony is attended by the vast majority of graduates, and the faculty and peers highly push students to partake in the event.
Today I took a stand and rejected the Iron Ring.
Why reject the iron ring?
I thought we had a thread on mining disasters but couldn't find it, so am posting this sort of good news story here.
Let's lobby for mine owners/operators to keep their executive and management offices underground in the mines.
Chinese miners rescued after 25 days ordeal• Twelve others presumed dead after shaft flooded
The mine's owner failed to report the accident for 13 hours, state media reported - greatly reducing the chances of a successful rescue.
The three survivors rescued were 500-600 metres from the entrance to the mine shaft, on a level intersection protecting them from the flood, according to the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper. But the ceiling had collapsed, blocking a path to the tunnel opening.
On Sunday, rescuers digging into the mountainside cleared a path and saw a dim glow still coming from the miners' lights, said Wang Guangneng, a Communist party spokesman in Qinglong county.
"We crept along the tunnel in excitement, seeing someone sitting in front," said Li Xingwei, head of the Longchang coal mine, who was reportedly the first to find the men.
When Li called out to ask how many of them there were, a voice answered weakly but clearly "three" and "we were from Henan," the state news agency, Xinhua, reported. Rescuers then carried the men to freedom on their backs.
Wang Quanjie, 36, reportedly told them only: "I want to go out."
Zhao Weixing, also 36, later told reporters: "I feel OK."
A photograph of the third man, 35-year-old Wang Kuangwei, showed his eyes covered to protect them from the light.
He Sijun, who has been doing rescue work in mines for six years, told Xinhua: "They were experienced ... They tried to save their energy and firmly believed that they would be saved, ultimately."
He added: "At the site where they were found there was water [that had] seeped in, and oxygen could go into the tunnel as well."
Earlier this year Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Administration of Coalmine Safety, told Xinhua that 80% of China's 16,000 mines were illegal.
"Coal mines often experience the most serious accidents because so many of them are operating illegally. The industry also sees the most frequent covering-up of accidents," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/13/china-miners-rescue-trapped-...
It may not be an engineering failure. It could be a wonderful bridge design but if it's constructed with bad materials or poor techniques, this can happen.
Most interesting bridge collpase was the tacoma suspension bridge accident.
I think the Tacoma bridge accident had a lot to do with resonance caused by a particular wind in the valley the bridge crossed. Not only were the winds at times strong, they were constant. At a certain velocity, it matched the resonance frequency of the bridge, and the rest is history. the Ambassador Bridge faces different wind conditions.
The lessons of the Tacoma bridge failure were not lost on the builders of the Mackinaw bridge, which joins the upper and lower Michigan peninsulas. There are sections of the road surface of the bridge which are made of heavy duty expanded steel, or gratting. This allows the wind to pass through, in sections, and defeat any resonance from wind.
Unfortunately, the safety standards for cars were developed in the 50's, and accounted for vehicle weights of that era. A good while ago, a woman died when her light weight compact car was lifted off the gratted section and fell off the bridge.
The stuff of nightmares.
The instructive part about the Tacoma bridge incident is that the fault was an "honest" one, and lessons were taken and applied in subsequent bridges.
What I find disturbing is the trend lately towards dishonest mistakes, where engineers knew better, as in Kasechewan, Minnesota and, perhaps most graphically in New Orleans.
Very sad news. While performing such type of construction work, necessary precautions should be applied as any mistake can become a huge loss.
[Spam link deleted by Maysie]
Prvious post is by a spammer who needs to be turfed.
On the construction sites, which include bridges, that I have worked at, it is usually the engineers that are in charge and directing the show. Either there were incompetent engineering plans being used, or proper safety procedures were not being followed. The problem is it is always the construction workers that usually die when these problems occur.
In Canada and the US the power lies with the on site construction supervisor- who may or may not be explicitly leaned on by those up the hierarchy. Engineers who designed the poject are consulted and have oversight. A supervisor is not going to ignore their instructions or advice for final results that will be inspected. But saftey in how it is built does not show up at the end.
Foremen who are in the union are required by the union to stop any unsafe practices. But I dont think foremen allied with the site super is an unusual situation. Companies can arrange it that way, with Carpenter business agents also overlooking the practice.
I was working on the silos at that giant Bowmanville cement plant. When the slip forms neared the top [250'] the site super ordered that they move faster. The engineer who came with the equipment strenuouslys objected and was ignored. The crew foreman was uneasy but not step in even though he had clear authority and requirement to do so. As a result, steel reinforcing popped out of the concrete below the slidng form- exposed when it was too green. The dozens of workers on the platform were evacuated, and work on the silos halted. No one was hurt in this case, but it could have been a disaster.
Whether India or Canada, greedy and heedless owners and bosses are at the bottom of most of these incidents. Thjey can and do igore engineers. [And occassionaly hire engineers that they know they can pressure to approve something they want.]