Dutch cranes collapse onto buildings while attempting to restore a bridge in the central Dutch town of Alphen aan den Rijn.
On August 3rd, around 20 people were injured when two cranes fell over onto housing in a western Dutch town. The cranes were attempting to hoist a section of a bridge adjacent to a waterway.
Amateur video shows the cranes toppling over part way through the lift.
Contributing Factors?
As safety professionals , so many questions run through our minds after seeing something like this. Were the operators trained? How long have they been crane operators? Was the collapse due to exceeding the equipment’s rated capacity or was it simply the positioning of the crane? Maybe it was a miscommunication between the two operators or perhaps a spotter who was not operating the equipment?
Of course (at least we hope) a very comprehensive investigation will be facilitated and the all of these questions will be answered. Whether the answers to these questions will ever be shared with us is a different story. Let’s stay hopeful that we can all learn from this and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
What do you think the contributing factors to this could have been? Leave your comments below!
