The crushed car after a beam from a construction site in Ho Chi Minh City fell on it on September 30

A Chinese contractor was at fault last month when a concrete beam fell and crushed a passing car, killing a mother and seriously injuring her daughter and husband, Ho Chi Minh City’s labor department said.

An inspection of the site, a tunnel project near the Phu My Bridge in District 7, also found that the crane’s hook, which had broken and dropped the 4-ton, 10-meter concrete beam, did not have the necessary safety lock installed.

Mai Xuan Thinh, 30, and his wife Phan Ngoc Duc Thao were driving by with their three-year-old daughter on September 30 when the beam crushed their vehicle.

According to witnesses, the beam had hit the ground vertically before it fell on the car horizontally.

But varying accounts placed the drop from some 10 centimeters from the ground to several meters.

The department said How Yu had further violated the law by failing to place signs warning motorists of the construction site, and by not asking permission from the city’s Department of Transport to control traffic around the area.

The incident sent the family to hospital where Thao succumbed to her injuries. Thinh has been released but his daughter, Mai Phan Hoang Phuc, is still under treatment.

Inspectors are continuing their investigation, while the Chinese worker who had been operating the crane at the time of the incident has fled.

Reported by P.Thanh