Eleven killed as 70-tonne crane collapses at Vizag’s shipyard
nHYDERABAD: Eleven people died on the spot when a 70-tonne jetty crane crashed on them at Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), a Government of India undertaking, at Visakhapatnam on Saturday afternoon, officials said.
Visakhapatnam district collector V Vinay Chand told reporters that the accident happened when the workers were testing the load capability of the crane. The base portion and the overhead cabin got separated, resulting in the collapse of the crane on the ground, he said.
Eleven workers were crushed to death as they came under the equipment. While one victim could not be identified immediately, the other 10 were identified as R Venkat Rao, Chaitanya, Ramu, P V Ratnam, P Naga Demudu, Satyaraj, Shiva Kumar, P Bhaskar, K Jagan and K Prasad.
TV visuals showed the equipment collapsing on the ground with a loud thud after its cabin and base snapped during the trial run.
The collector, who inspected the site, said that the jetty crane was erected by Anupam Cranes of Mumbai two years ago, but had not been commissioned for operations. Later, HSL outsourced the operation to Greenfield Company which co-opted Lead Engineers and Squad7 Company for its maintenance. “These contractors had commenced full load trials and testing was being done when the tragedy occurred,”
Vinay Chand added.
There were 10 people in the crane cabin: three employees of Greenfield company, two of Lead Engineers and one from Squad7, apart from four permanent employees of HSL.
“All of them died when the cabin crashed. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem,” he said. No one else was injured in the mishap, he said.
The HSL has started an inquiry by an internal committee while chief minister Y S Jagan
Mohan Reddy has ordered a probe by a committee of engineers, comprising heads of departments of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering of Andhra Engineering College, to investigate the cause.
“The committees will probe if negligence led to the mishap,” he said.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh later took to Twitter to express his anguish over the accident. “Extremely anguished by the loss of lives due to an accident at HSL facility in Vishakhapatnam(ap),” Singh tweeted.
“My thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover quickly,” he said. “Departmental Enquiry Committee has been instituted to establish the causes leading to the accident,” he added.
This is the second major industrial accident in Vizag after the gas leak at LG Polymers that left dozens dead following the May 7 accident.