A crane crashed onto a building in New York City on Friday, killing two construction workers and seriously injuring another, officials said, in the second such fatal accident in the area in less than three months.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the incident “intolerable,” but said there was “no reason to think there’s any real connection” between the two crane crashes.
All three victims were working on the site in the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Friday when the crane fell on the 32-story building under construction and a 23-story building across the street, the mayor told reporters, adding that a pedestrian was also slightly injured.
PHOTO: AFP
Police said the crane operator died at the scene, while a second worker died later in the hospital. A third worker was in serious condition with a chest wound.
“I think what has happened is unacceptable and intolerable,” Bloomberg said. “Having said that, we do not at the moment know exactly what happened or why ... whether or not had we had other regulations, we could have prevented this at this point, we just don’t know.”
Officials insisted the crane had been properly inspected.
“We have no reason to believe that there was anything we could have done to prevent this. Clearly, the crane fell. Three people were very badly hurt, [two] fatally, so we have to take a look at our procedures again,” Bloomberg said.
New York Governor David Paterson said the accident was a “terrible tragedy,” adding: “There’s no need to speculate now on how this happened. That will all be investigated, but certainly these types of accidents are all too frequent.”
A similar tragedy took place in Manhattan in March when a construction crane fell on top of a small building, killing seven people.
New regulations were introduced following the accident in March and first deputy buildings commissioner Robert LiMandri said the crane involved in Friday’s collapse had been inspected under this new protocol.
Firefighters picked through piles of rubble at the site, while crowds gathered trying to get a look at the twisted metal of the crane and part of the building that appeared to be sheared off.
In March, seven people were killed, six of them construction workers, when a 60m crane collapsed and crushed an entire residential building and damaged several other properties.
Bloomberg said at the time that the accident was “one of the worst the city has had.”
A New York city employee later was charged with lying about an inspection he supposedly made of that construction crane.
The building under construction in that case, a 43-story residential block, had been cited for 13 safety violations, five of which were outstanding, local authorities said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS