The number of workers killed in accidents on building sites in the city has dramatically increased because of understaffed inspection offices, failure to provide adequate safety equipment.

Workers building an overpass on the Ha Noi Highway at the Cat Lai intersection in HCM City’s District 2.

For the same period last year, there were 62 workplace deaths and only about 40 per cent of them were in the construction sector.

Department supervising head Huynh Tan Dung said many investors in small-scale buildings often sold their tenders to other companies or let a sub-contractor handle their projects without any kind of safety supervision requirements.

In order to win contracts, many tenderers cut down on the cost of safety barriers and equipment and clothing.

Dung said the blame lay equally with construction site supervisors, his own department staff and building owners.

“Supervision is not done well and many construction sites don’t meet safety regulations. There are no safety rails or workers aren’t equipped with safety clothing and equipment. Any mistake can lead to death.”

Earlier last month, Nguyen Hai Ninh, a construction worker at the condominium and business centre, the Ever Rich, was killed when he fell from the 28th floor to the fifth floor.

Two months before, at a house on 110 Tay Hoa Street, Phuoc Long Ward, District 9, worker Ho Van Dung was standing 10m up on a wooden scaffold with a bucket of mortar in one hand and holding on to a brick. The brick broke and Dung lost his balance, falling to his death.

At a steel tank construction site in Nha Be, Nguyen Van Manh was working on a temporary floor 12m up. The floor suddenly collapsed and the fall killed him.

One of the causes of deaths and injuries was construction workers’ low education and lack of labour safety training, Dung said. They were not aware of self-protection measures and did not follow labour safety regulations.

One worker threw construction materials from an upper floor instead of safely moving them. One of the pieces caught in his clothes and he was dragged over to his death.

Tran Van Dung, a safety inspector of Phu Nhuan Construction Technology Company, lost his life through carelessness. He sat on the edge of the third floor of a building to remove dust from his hair, lost his balance and died in the fall.

Workplace safety was the responsibility of everyone involved in projects, including investors, Dung said.

With only 11 supervisors in the department, Huynh Tan Dung said, it was very hard for them to closely watch every construction project in the city. The staff were supposed to co-operate with other construction inspectors from local areas but it had not been well conducted.

Dung said most of the time companies were ordered to cease operations only after any death, instead of unsafe sites being detected and closed down before the incidents happened.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News