Recent Scaffold Collapses

Two workers have died following a scaffolding collapse at a construction site in Toronto's west end.

2 dead after scaffolding collapse (Toronto): Two men have died after a scaffolding collapse at a construction site in Toronto’s west end, police say. It happened just after 11 a.m. in the Bloor Street West and Keele Street area. One of the men who died was 51-years-old, according to a colleague and friend on the scene. He had a granddaughter born last week. Paramedics said another man in his 30s was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital without vital signs, where he later died. A metal and wooden platform collapsed from about six storeys high, one worker at the scene said. It is believed a hydraulic lift may have failed, sending the platform to the ground. The Ministry of Labour has been called to the scene to investigate.

Scaffolding collapse in downtown Raleigh. It could take three to six months for Labor Department investigators to determine what caused the collapse.

A vigil was held Friday at noon at Shaw University's Thomas J. Boyd Chapel to remember the three men who lost their lives in a tragic scaffolding accident in Raleigh on Monday. The scaffolding collapsed shortly before 11 a.m. Monday at the construction site of the Charter Square project on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh. Anderson Almeida and Jose Erasmo Hernandez of Durham died in the accident, as well as Jose Luis Lopez-Ramirez of Clinton.

Two of the men killed in the accident worked for Concord-based Juba Aluminum Products, which specializes in building exteriors, curtainwalls, storefronts and aluminum panels. The company has not said what role it played in the Charter Square project other than that the men worked on its Jannawall team. According to a U.S. Department of Labor database, Juba Aluminum has been cited for four separate "serious" violations since 1988. The North Carolina Department of Labor said the third man who was killed Monday worked for KEA Contracting, Inc. Elmer Guevara, who was injured in the incident, was employed by Associated Scaffolding Equipment.

Rescuers clear the rubble of a scaffolding that collapsed in the central province of Ha Tinh on March 25, killing 13 and injuring 28.

13 confirmed dead, 28 injured in Vietnam scaffolding collapse as rescue mission ends: Authorities in the central province of Ha Tinh have confirmed that 13 people died and 28 others were injured in a scaffolding collapse on Wednesday, as rescuers finished clearing the massive rubble of the worst construction accident since 2007. In a report to the government, the province’s labor department said the accident at the construction site of a steel plant-port complex invested by Taiwanese-owned Formosa Plastics Group could be caused by some problem in a hydraulic system.

It is still unclear how and by whom the system was operated in the scaffolding, which was part of the construction of a breakwater to protect the port. The province’s authorities are working with government agencies to further investigate the cause of the collapse. Contractor Samsung C&T, a subsidiary of the South Korea's Samsung, in a statement issued on Thursday pledged to take responsibility for the accident, provide support to the victims, and assist authorities during the investigation. 

Early signs ignored: Around 50 workers were working on the scaffolding which was 25 meters high, 40 meters long and 35 meters wide, when it tumbled down on Wednesday night. Some survivors told local media that about 30 minutes before the collapse, the scaffolding shook strongly. Many of them ran away, but a few minutes later their foreign supervisor ordered them to come back to continue working. The most recent catastrophe at this scale took place on September 26, 2007, when two spans of a bridge which was being built in the Mekong Delta collapsed, killing 55 workers and injured 80 others.

Work on Can Tho Bridge, which connects Can Tho City and Vinh Long Province, was completed in 2010. Formosa launched work on the complex in Vung Ang Economic Zone in July 2008 with the initial investment of nearly $10 billion. As of December last year, the project has recruited around 40,000 laborers, nearly 5,700 of whom are Chinese. Early this month the government inspectorate found that managers at the Vung Ang Economic Zone went beyond their authority and broke quite a few rules when offering too many incentives to Formosa. Among the violations, according to the inspectorate, the Formosa complex was illegally licensed for a 70-year period, even though Vietnam's investment law states that a foreign-invested project must not last more than 50 years. 

Worker advocate calls for tougher scaffolding regulations.

Worker advocate calls for tougher scaffolding regulations: As a state and federal investigation continues into the collapse of scaffolding at a downtown Raleigh high-rise Monday that killed three construction workers, crews on Thursday removed the rest of the scaffolding from the side of the building. Jose Erasmo Hernandez, 41, Anderson Almeida, 33, both of Durham, and Jose Luis Lopez-Ramirez, 33, of Clinton, died in the accident at the 11-story Charter Square project on Fayetteville Street. Elmer Guevara, 53, was seriously injured and remains hospitalized at WakeMed.

The accident involved equipment known as a mast climber scaffold, which moves up and down a building's facade to take workers to different floors. Mike Hampton, chief operating officer for general contractor Choate Construction Co., has said subcontractor Associated Scaffolding was in the process of dismantling the scaffold when one of the tracks snapped off and fell into a twisted heap on the ground below.

Veteran scaffold builder Tom Hallman said he was on a job site in West Virginia six years ago where a co-worker died. "It's not good. They shut the job down. It's like the area around here. You just kind of feel it in the air. It's sad, it's very sad," said Hallman, who is now an online advocate for more than 10,000 people in his industry. He says the danger lies with antiquated federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules that apply the same safety guidelines to all types of scaffolding equally. "I hate to say it, but most OSHA rules, they say in business, are written in blood, and here we go. There's need for a change," he said.

Hallman said mast climbers call for higher safety measures, such as "lifelines" that tether workers to a building and not just the platforms on which they stand. "When you're tearing them down, when you demo them, when you get to that certain point that you have lifelines dropped (from the platform), if something fails, you've got that fail-safe," he said. Authorities said it could take months to determine the cause of the accident and determine whether any workplace safety violations occurred.

How do I find out about employer responsibilities and worker rights? Workers have a right to a safe workplace. The law requires employers to provide their employees with working conditions that are free of known dangers. The OSHA law also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under the law (including the right to raise a health and safety concern or report an injury). For more information see www.whistleblowers.gov or worker rights.