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. Â Were the operators trained? Â How long have they been crane operators? Â Was the collapse due to exceeding the equipment’s rated capacity or was it simply the positioning of the crane? Â 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. Â Whether the answers to these questions will ever be shared with us is a different story. Â 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? Â Leave your comments below!
