2 safety accidents at construction sites in 10 days

Shanghai Administration of Work Safety urged all construction sites in the city to pay further attention and take precautions after seven people were killed in two accidents at construction sites in the city since September 10.

As tourism festival has attracted scores of people to Shanghai, Mid-Autumn and National Day break is also around the corner, the administration said work safety is a paramount task to keep the city in order.

On September 10, a site at 179 Zhennan Road in the Pudong New Area where a new school project was under construction, two workers lost consciousness when drawing water from the basement. During the rescue, another worker also went unconscious. The accidents took three lives.

Another accident happened on September 20, a worker at a construction site of a sewage treatment plant in Changning District fainted when demolishing scaffolding at the sedimentation basin of the plant. Three who tried to rescue him fainted as well. They were pronounced dead on the ambulance.

The administration said sites in confined spaces like basements, pipelines, cesspits and sedimentation basins can be dangerous as the air is thin and poisonous gas is likely to be generated during construction.

Yet at the sites where accidents happened, the safety management of these sites were disorganized. The supervision division of the construction teams failed to evaluate the risks and was trying to weasel out.

“They didn’t follow the protocol of construction at these very places which emphasized the importance of ventilating and protection,” said an official from the administration.

On the other hand, casualties at both sites were resulted from unprofessional rescue. Without knowledge of first or protective gear, the workers blindly attempted to rescue their co-workers.

According to the administration, 133 accidents happened in the first eight months this year – nine percent more than last year – taking 138 lives.