Fatal building site falls,
A BUILDING site foreman has been arrested and work on his site halted following the death of a labourer — one of two people to fall to their deaths from half-finished buildings on Wednesday.
Forty-one-year-old Doğan Turan was killed when he fell some 15 metres from the fifth floor of a block being built in Dumlupınar. He was rushed to Lefkoşa State Hospital and died in the intensive care unit at 5pm. Media reports said Mr Turan, who had arrived in the TRNC from Turkey on January 17, had gone to the construction site with a friend at 11am, looking for work.
Labour Department head Yusuf Enderol initially confirmed Mr Turan had not been registered as an employee at the site, but said yesterday it had been established that he was working there.
It was revealed that 53-year-old foreman Cengiz Konaklı had been arrested for alleged failure to take safety precautions on the fifth floor of the construction, where Mr Turan reportedly fell through a ventilation shaft.
Labour Department officials said yesterday the contractor on the White Lotus site had been fined and work on the site halted until requisite safety measures were taken.
Mr Turan’s death brought to two the death toll from a total of five workplace accidents so far this year.
Musa Düşkün plunged four metres to the ground from a hotel construction in Karaoğlanoğlu on January 13, dying later in Lefkoşa State Hospital.
His death, the first such tragedy of 2018, prompted the head of the Work Health and Safety Experts’ Union, Tezel Baykent, to issue a statement saying “98 per cent” of workplace accidents could be prevented through “simple measures, checks and inspections”.
Police are also investigating an incident on a building site in Gönyeli on Wednesday, in which 16-year-old Mustafa Uçar fell from the second floor of a part-built apartment block at 5.30pm, plunging six metres to the ground. He died at about 10.15pm in the intensive care unit of Lefkoşa State Hospital.