JEDDAH, 17 May 2006 — Two more workers have died in the construction of Jeddah’s sewage system. A Sudanese, recovered after 10 hours in a collapsed 15-meter-deep trench, died in hospital on Sunday. The other was killed in the accident. A spokesman for Jeddah municipality said that the responsibility for enforcing safety regulations in the pipeline trench works did not lie with them.
“This was a serious violation of safety regulations,” said Col. Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, head of the Civil Defense, which organized the rescue of the workers. He said that at the time of the incident the site manager was not present. “The contractors have been told they would be charged and that there would be serious penalties.”
According to Thalah Touqa, an engineer at one of the Kingdom’s prestigious contracting and developing companies, the soil in Jeddah is weak due to the very high sand content, usually moist, and highly weathered. If it is left unsupported in a trench, it can easily collapse and quickly suffocate workers.
According to Touqa, there are safety regulations in the Kingdom that contractors must follow; safety regulation fees are included in the contract.
“At least one percent of the contract fees is dedicated to safety procedures,” said Touqa. Many engineers believed that this is due to “contractors looking for the quick and cheap way out,” he added.
On Feb. 15, two workers died and one was badly injured when a piece of heavy earthmoving equipment fell into the trench where they were working, literally crushing them to pieces. The ground gave way under the machinery that fell into the unshored trench.
Last August, several tons of sandy soil collapsed on an Egyptian — an undocumented migrant worker — in the Al-Rehab area of Jeddah and crushed the life out of him. Once again, the trench walls were unshored, a blatant violation of local and international safety guidelines and regulations.
Described as “accidents,” these incidents were and continue to be entirely preventable; the responsibility for ensuring that safety precautions are applied on site rests with the contractor.
Hisham Tabbara, president of the engineering consultancy Saudi Consult, said that project consultants, who examine the practical details of any project, “can only advise and recommend strongly” on safety measures and the regulations that apply. They have no power to enforce them.
The Jeddah municipality is not responsible for inspecting or enforcing safety in trench works.
Hisham Dabbagh, manager of the municipality’s media and communications department, said that the municipality’s role is to coordinate the project before it takes place, including the timing and integrating the works with other excavation projects to minimize the inevitable disruption to the city’s traffic. “Responsibility for safety falls outside our area,” he said.
In Jeddah a public works project manager said that the cost of providing safety precautions was built into the project price. He said that contractors looked for cheap, quick ways to complete the job.
“Before they start, contractors have to sign up to safety measures, but there is no follow-up. I see dangerous trenches all over Jeddah, especially in the streets,” he said.
He said it was the job of traffic police and the municipality to ensure that safety regulations are followed.
It may be the responsibility of contractors to apply safety regulations, but to observe them properly slows work and costs money. The temptation to any contractor working to tight time and financial constraints is to take short cuts and gamble on safety.
An official in the Ministry of Water and Electricity said that to his knowledge, inspectors did not visit sites to check safety. He was not even certain there were any inspectors.
Safer ways to lay pipes and cables are available; they avoid many of the hazards of excavation. If a trench is required, modern systems providing ground support — the shoring that holds the trench walls in place — can be installed. These shoring devices — metal boxes that protect workers from collapsing sidewalls — do not prevent cave-ins, but they do keep the workers inside their perimeters safe.
The UK Health and Safety Executive says, “Without suitable support, any face of an excavation will collapse; it’s just a matter of when. The steeper and deeper the face, the wetter the soil, then the sooner the collapse.”
