By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS
Dubai : At least seven construction workers, all of them believed to be Indians, were killed and at least 24 injured Thursday evening when a bridge under construction in the Dubai Marina area here collapsed. Authorities blamed a crane operator for the mishap.
The incident occurred when a crane hit the bridge under construction on Sufooh Road, near Jumeirah Marina Mall here, an area marked by high-rise residential and commercial buildings.
“The fault is two-fold: the driver’s miscalculation of the height of the steel columns, and a lack of site supervision,” Dubai chief of police, Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tameim said.
“My tentative assumption is that the bridge collapsed because a crane driver had tried to lift a 1.5-tonne load of steel onto the bridge. The load, however, hit against the bridge columns causing it to collapse.”
Stating that workers were present within the columns under construction, he said: “This is a breach of safety practices which dictate that the site be cleared of workers before such a load is brought down.”
“Seven workers died in the incident,” an official of the Indian mission here confirmed to IANS late Thursday night.
“Twenty four others were injured and admitted to the Rashid Hospital,” the official added.
Asked if all those killed were Indians, he said: “The hospital is yet to confirm the nationalities of all those deceased.”
According to local television reports, around 40 Indian workers were on the bridge when the incident occurred.
The Indian mission official said the contracting company that employed the workers has promised compensation to the next of kin of all those who have died.
“It’s a respectable local company and it has promised compensation to the families of all those deceased,” he said.
Reports here quoted witnesses as saying that they saw at least three bodies being taken away in police vehicles.
“Engineers are at the site and are inspecting the situation,” the Al Jazeera television network quoted Jamal al-Marri, deputy police chief, as saying.
Meanwhile, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has expressed its sorrow at the incident.
While expressing his condolences to the families of the victims, Mattar Al Tayer, chairman of the board and executive director of RTA, said: “This is a human fault for which the contractor bears full responsibility”.
He added that RTA had set up a committee comprising representatives from RTA, Dubai Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the incident and identify its causes, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.
“Such an incident could happen in invariably any country. However, accidents in RTA projects are generally rare,” he said, stressing that RTA applied stringent safety measures and obligated its consultants and contractors to adhere to safety rules and procedures to avoid accidents.
This Gulf metropolis of 1.4 million people is witnessing a construction boom with many of the workers coming from the Indian subcontinent.