Tuesday, October 21, 2008

October 21st, 2008

Taizhou City. China A crane collapsed and fell into a second crane yesterday and caused it to collapse. I don't have any details on the cranes or even that they are tower cranes. Two workers died and four were seriously injured. I am working on finding photos.

Monday, October 20, 2008

April 20, 1985


Seattle WA, in 1985 a tower crane collapsed during a climbing operation. The idiots involved were pushing off from 324 feet up to insert more tower. They didn't have the bolts connecting the climber to the turntable installed, as specified, and the crane was out of balance as they virtually always are during climbing operations. (The same accident happened in England last year with a Comedil CTT181 www.sitbonzo.com ). The superstructure slid off the climber backwards and fell to the street. It was a Saturday monring so no one on the ground was killed. The operator survived the fall and came out the cabs saying "I'm alive!" The story around town is that, he was never right, mentally, again after the accident. He has since died due to other causes. Unfortunately the iron workers involved didnt' get killed. One or two of them were the same jackasses involved in the 1989 San Francisco climbing collapse. Fortunately they fell with that crane and won't be killing anyone else.
The most egregious part of the story is that Washington State levied a fine of $300 against the crane leaser for not supplying proper training. It's nearly as bad as the fines for the Bellevue accident only being $9200. Labor and Industries needs to sharpen it's pencil for this kind of stupidity and levy fines well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions. $9200 dollars doesn't even cover the cost of a company Christmas Party or the cost to the state to levy that fine. So we have to pay money to punish a contractor with a feather.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

October 14th, 2008

Shanghai China

Tower crane being loadtested failed killing two people in the crane, likely the operator and technician. No other details or photos have been found yet. I'll add them when I find them

October 14th, 2008

Link to a youtube video of a tower crane on a cross base going down. I can't tell if it's a traveller but it doesn' look like it.



Sorry, Link is now dead 8.4.09

Saturday, October 11, 2008

October 10th, 2008





Zibo City, China. A tower crane operating near a school collapsed and killed five children. The children were killed by falling bricks rather than directly by the crane. The operator survived but was taken to the hospital



This is the second time this decade that a tower crane in China has fallen over and landed on a school killing children. With the tiny news story that this is, how many cranes are actually falling over in China? Hell, five children dead and you have to look for the story. It really makes me wonder how many cranes are actually falling over world wide and why. We need to know in order to learn the causes and not repeat history.