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Last year was one of the deadliest on record for construction workers since 2011. The findings produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the rate of deaths in 2023 was still unchanged from the previous year’s survey. The fatality rate (9.6 per 100,000) has... View full entry
A giant aquarium containing a million litres of water in the lobby of the Radisson Blu in Berlin has burst, flooding the hotel and nearby streets.
A spokesman for Berlin's fire brigade told the BBC the vast majority of the fish had died, and the cold weather had made rescue attempts more difficult. The tank had contained more than 100 different specie.
A police source told local media there is no evidence the break was the result of a targeted attack.
— BBC
The reportedly €12.8 million ($13.85 million USD) feature inside the central Mitte district’s Radisson Blu Hotel is considered to be the largest cylindrical fish tank in the world and was, until the accident, home to 1,500 fish. Only two human injuries were reported. The current cold... View full entry
Hong Kong's iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant has capsized in the South China Sea less than a week after it was towed away from the city, its parent company said Monday.
The restaurant was towed away last Tuesday. The company said it planned to move it to a lower-cost site where maintenance could be carried out. It said that prior to its departure, the vessel had been thoroughly inspected by marine engineers and hoardings were installed, and all relevant approvals were obtained.
— NPR
The Wes Anderson-like former fine-dining establishment served some rather well-regarded Cantonese cuisine to diners for more than forty years before being closed and decommissioned earlier this month following the Covid-caused economic downturn of 2020. The three-story vessel reportedly went down... View full entry
A collapsing floor injured two workers Monday at a midtown office building where falling exterior work killed a prominent architect in 2019. The accident at 729 Seventh Avenue happened just before 10 a.m. During active demolition work on the 18th floor, part of the floor collapsed, sending two workers dropping to the 17th floor. They were taken to area hospitals; their conditions were not immediately clear. — NBC New York
The address is well known as the site where, in December 2019, architect Erica Tishman was struck by a piece of falling debris that her family claims directly resulted from negligence on the part of the property developer and the Department of Buildings. Administrative code charges... View full entry
A large chunk of aluminum cladding fell off the Hancock building earlier this week, frightening neighbors. The piece of cladding fell about 3 p.m. Wednesday, landing atop a planter on the building’s south side off Chestnut Street. No one was injured. — Block Club Chicago
The incident is eerily reminiscent of the tragic 2019 death of architect Erica Tishman in Manhattan, which has resulted in recent criminal charges in addition to a host of lawsuits brought against the property developers and city by the architect’s family and Department of Buildings. ... View full entry
Officials in Venice are finally caving to local demands to author significant changes to Santiago Calatrava’s Ponta della Costituzione bridge following years of protest and a rash of recent injuries. The New York Times is reporting that glass from the pedestrian bridge is going to be removed and... View full entry
A new development in the 2019 accidental death of architect Erica Tishman as criminal charges have been filed against property owners 729 Acquisitions LLC. NBC4 New York is reporting that the administrative code charges were brought by the NYC Department of Buildings. The architect’s family had... View full entry
The widower of a beloved architect who died tragically in an accident is now taking aim at the property developers in his ongoing quest for justice. A judge in New York is now allowing a suit to be brought against Himmel + Meringoff Properties, which manages the Seventh Avenue building through an... View full entry
The National Science Foundation (NSF), last week, released video of the Arecibo Telescope's cable failure and collapse. Part of the Arecibo Observatory, the telescope was completed in 1963, and was the largest single-aperture telescope until 2016. This year, NSF decommissioned the telescope... View full entry
Erica Tishman died last year after rubble fell from 729 Seventh Ave. and struck her in the head. The building had several outstanding violations with the Department of Buildings some of which her family’s lawyers say still hadn’t been addressed when the family sued the city and building owner in August for wrongful death and negligence. — Daily News
According to Daily News, the city Law Department tried to dodge liability in a new Manhattan Supreme Court filing by saying the city streets are known to be dangerous, so people on sidewalks should be prepared for the worst. The city Law Department wrote: "Plaintiff(s) knew or should have... View full entry
According to The New York Times' Allyson Waller, "Chris Town was assembling a bed frame for a friend's son in a 19th century house in Guilford, Connecticut....when the floor gave out beneath him." Town had fallen into a fieldstone cistern well that was concealed beneath the floor boards... View full entry
An ironworker was killed...while performing work on the $1.5 billion Amazon Air hub project at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) in Hebron, Kentucky, an incident confirmed via an emailed statement to Construction Dive from the general contractor, Whiting-Turner Kokosing JV. The Boone County, Kentucky, coroner has identified the worker as 46-year-old Loren Shoemake and said he died from blunt force trauma. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, a full investigation is underway led by OSHA. In a statement, Amazon said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, along with the contractors and construction teams during this difficult time," reports Construction Dive. View full entry
Family members of two of the four people killed in the April crane collapse site have filed wrongful death suits against companies involved in crane operations at the South Lake Union construction site.
Gusting winds knocked the crane over the afternoon of April 27, after workers prematurely removed pins holding 20-foot sections together, leading to a tragedy that state regulators called “totally avoidable.”
— The Seattle Times
The collapse in April killed two iron workers, Andrew Yoder, 31, and Travis Corbet, 33; Alan Justad, 71, a former city planning official; and Sarah Wong, a 19-year-old Seattle Pacific University student, The Seattle Times reports. The families have filed suites against Morrow Equipment... View full entry
Seattle’s construction frenzy turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a tower crane working on a new Google campus fell like a thunderbolt from the roof of a South Lake Union building, smashing into six cars and killing four people. — The Seattle Times
"The four-building, 607,000-square-foot project will house a new Google Seattle campus, and also include about 150 new apartments," reports The Seattle Times about the tragic incident at a South Lake Union site at Fairview Avenue and Mercer Street. "Construction began in 2017 and is set to be... View full entry
The culture of fear and intimidation on construction sites has led to basic safety precautions being overlooked. Nashville is currently the most dangerous city in the south for construction workers, according to a report released in May 2017 by the Partnership for Working Families, Workers Defense Project and the University of Illinois at Chicago professor Nik Theodore, titled Build a Better South: Construction Working Conditions in the US South. — The Guardian
The Build a Better South: Construction Working Conditions in the US South study examined construction industry labor conditions across six key cities in the southern United States: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and Nashville. "Among workers who had been injured during the past year... View full entry
