SHARJAH, 14 April 2004 — At least 10 construction workers died and one was critically injured when a crane collapsed on top of a pick-up van at a building site in Sharjah, police and company sources said.
The accident occurred as the workers were waiting inside the van to be taken back to their camps after the day’s work. The case highlights the chaos in the labor supply in the UAE as no one can authoritatively provide the identities of the dead.
In the UAE, major contracting companies hire workers on daily wages from sub-contractors but take no responsibility for them. No verification is made of their legal status as the main contractors say this is the responsibility of the sub-contractor.
In the Sharjah case, all of the deceased were supplied by a small sub-contractor. The main contractor had no information about them, not even their names or nationalities. Sources said five of them were Indian and the others were from either Pakistan or Bangladesh. More than that was not known.
Police said they were trying to get information from the sub-contractor but the key person was out of the country.
Investigations into the cause of the crane collapse will run parallel with an investigation by labor and immigration officials who are attempting to determine the legal status of the sub-contractor and the workers.
It was the second such incident in a week. An accident in Abu Dhabi had earlier killed an Asian crane operator.
Witnesses to the Sharjah incident recalled the horror as the heavy crane plummeted the 15 floors of the building under construction and struck the light vehicle.
They said the victims were crushed to death and their mangled bodies lay under the weight of metal. The horizontal beam of the crane that moves pre-cast concrete slabs gave away at the operator’s cabin and smashed the driver’s cabin and part of the rear section where workers were seated.
Ismail Abul Izz, head of Sharjah public prosecution, called for the arrest of the engineer in charge of the crane’s installation.
