#construction-safety

#construction-safety

An explosion apparently caused when a construction crew hit a gas line destroyed three buildings in Ashland, north of Hayward, Thursday morning and left six people with injuries, the extent of which are not yet known. A construction crew, including someone operating a small excavator, can be seen in a neighbor's doorbell camera footage, doing work outside of a home on the 800 block of East Lewelling Boulevard, a residential street in the unincorporated area of Ashland, near Interstate 238 in Alameda County.

Wednesday's fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex broke out on the netting around the lower levels of one of the buildings before spreading to foam panels that quickly caught fire. Winds then blew the flames onto the other buildings, with seven out of eight buildings affected. It took until Friday for the fire to be fully extinguished.

With 27,000 employees and major infrastructure projects across the UK, Balfour Beatty is no stranger to complexity. But as its chief information officer (CIO) Jon Ozanne explains, complexity often carries inefficiency - and inefficiency carries risk. "We know that rework has a cost: it takes time, it takes money, and it carries health and safety implications," Ozanne says. "This is about how we make sure we build things right the first time."

It's estimated that there are more than 9,000 of these "construction sheds" (another term for scaffolding) installed across the city, enough to stretch nearly 400 miles if they were put end to end. They do the important work of shielding pedestrians from potential falling debris during building construction and renovation projects, but they also shroud large swaths of sidewalk in dark and cloistered tunnels made of an unfortunate jumble of steel poles and plywood.

A pane of glass plummeted more than 400 feet from a Midtown skyscraper, crashing down onto the sidewalk and street below early Sunday morning, city officials said. The 4-foot-by-6-foot pane fell from 1345 Sixth Ave., a 50-story, 2 million-square-foot tower at W. 54th St., around 7 a.m., according to the city's Department of Buildings. No one was injured by the glass, though police blocked off the sidewalk as first responders gathered.

A pane of glass plummeted more than 400 feet from a Midtown skyscraper, crashing down onto the sidewalk and street below early Sunday morning, city officials said. The 4-foot-by-6-foot pane fell from 1345 Sixth Ave., a 50-story, 2-million-square-foot tower at W. 54th St., around 7 a.m., according to the city's Department of Buildings. No one was injured by the glass, though police blocked off the sidewalk as first responders gathered.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) chief Suharyanto told reporters on Saturday that rescuers found nine bodies on Friday, raising the death toll to 14. As of today, we are still searching for 49 people who are still missing, said Suharyanto, who goes by one name, as reported by broadcaster Kompas TV. More victims could be found, Suharyanto said, as rescuers moved to use heavy machinery to clear locations where the victims were believed to be buried underneath the rubble.

Makeshift scaffolding set up at a church in Ethiopia has collapsed, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens, state media reported. The incident occurred at about 7:45am [4:45 GMT] on Wednesday in the town of Arerti, in the Amhara region, some 70 kilometres (43 miles) east of the capital, Addis Ababa. A group of pilgrims were visiting the Menjar Shenkora Arerti Mariam Church to mark the annual Virgin Mary festival when the scaffolding collapsed.

Elon Musk's Boring Company has reportedly stopped work on a tunnel it's been digging to the Las Vegas airport after a worker sustained a "crushing injury" late Wednesday night, according to Fortune. Nevada's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation. The Clark County Fire Department received a call at 10:12 p.m. local time on Wednesday and dispatched an 18-person rescue crew to the site.

Thirty-one workers were safely rescued after a tunnel collapse at the Clearwater Tunneling Project in Wilmington, with no visible injuries reported. The workers were provided medical assessments following their extraction by emergency responders.