Peril from above

A crane hangs ominously over traffic on Nguyen Thi Hong Gam Street in District 1, just a few weeks after a falling iron bar from the construction site seriously injured a father and son driving by on a motorbike.

Doctors from People’s Hospital 115 said Nguyen Tam Thang was hospitalized with a severe head injury and a broken thigh bone. His two-year-old son was admitted to the HCMC Children’s Hospital No. 2 with a serious injury to his head.

Both Thang and his boy had to undergo intensive surgeries to remove small bones that were inching toward their brains.

The iron bar was later found to have dropped from the 7th floor of the Ben Thanh Tower, currently under construction.

Another tall building under construction at the corner of Tran Cao Van and Phung Khac Khoan streets in District 1 is also threatening traffic with a crane extending over half the road.

The crane’s concrete blocks used for balance often hang over a section of the street before a crosswalk, where traffic stops at a red light.

The situation is the same at a high-rise building under construction at 199 Hoang Van Thu Street in Phu Nhuan District. Besides a construction crane hanging overhead, traffic is also threatened by scaffolding installed at the very edge of the sidewalk.

At another construction site in District 1, three tower cranes are working above traffic on three crowded streets: Ly Tu Trong, Le Thanh Ton and Dong Khoi.

To make matters worse, hundreds of construction projects to install water drainage systems underneath streets are using dredging cranes that often hang over the heads of passers-by.

Lax laws

Nguyen Quoc Viet, deputy chief inspector of the municipal Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said there was currently more construction of high-rise buildings and other structures in Vietnam’s residential areas than ever before.

He said many construction companies used tower cranes and there were no regulations prohibiting them from expanding above streets.

Viet also said his department had prepared policies to regulate the use of tower cranes, including certain hours of the day in which the cranes would be allowed and a requirement forcing contractors to set up warning signs near dangerous zones. But the policies have yet to come into effect.

Nguyen Van Hiep, deputy director of the city Construction Department, said the constant transfer of project responsibility among contractors has made way for low safety standards at construction sites.

Many companies that have won bids to major construction projects have transfered the projects to several contractors, many of whom use low quality equipment and unskilled workers to reduce input costs, he said.

Lawyer Phan Dang Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City said current Penal Codes only regulated individuals, not whole organizations or companies, and it would be impossible to identify the exact individuals responsible for many construction accidents.

Reported by Phuong Thanh