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.
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