Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Workers killed in Ajman

At least six workers are reported to have been killed in a construction site accident in Ajman.

Latest reports say three bodies have been recovered and the company says three more workers are missing.

There are seemingly conflicting stories about exactly what happened.

What is clear is that at the Laguna Beach Hotel being built on the Corniche Road in Ajman, concrete being poured for the basement ceiling collapsed onto workers below.

I would have thought that no-one should have been working beneath concrete being poured, but it appears they had gone down to check something, and that's where the facts seem to differ.

One version is that there was a leak while the concrete was being poured and the engineer told the workers to go down to check it.

Another is that the steel supports started shaking and the workers went down to try to fix them.

Police are said to be questioning several people, including the site engineer and a consultant.


You can read the stories, and see the extent of the collapse in the photos, in Gulf News and EmBiz247, here and here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I can't understand is why a building that has been under construction for two years was only just able to start work on the ground floor. Were there problems from the beginning?

Seabee said...

Maybe that was part of the problem - stop & start, work left unfinished then continued after a long period...?

Alexander said...

There was a huge problem caused by the heavy storms this winter, which totally flooded the deep foundations and required pumping out - which took days and days.

The construction delays where apparently more about agreements, vendors and partners than the physical constraints of construction.

If that helps!