October 11, 2011
China

Crane collapse kills five in China

www.vertikal.net 11 October 2011

Five people have died and one was injured last night when a crane collapsed in northwest China’s Gansu Province. Few details of the incident are available but according to reports the accident occurred late last night at a wind power equipment company in Jiuquan.

The boom of the crane is said to have ‘broken’ during a lifting operation, instantly crushing five workers to death. The injured person was in serious condition and taken to a nearby hospital, but his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.

An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. We will update this when we have more informaiton.

UPDATE

We have received a translation from the local newspaper that indicates that the crane was a 1,000 tonne crawler. While we have not been able to categorically confrim this all local political and news statements appear to confirm it: We have therefore decided to publish the information wich is already in the public domain while we investigate further. The text from the local statment is as follows:

“On October 10th, 2011, One 1000t Zoomlion CC crawler crane suddenly crashed during its operation destroying a Zoomlion service car and killing five government officers and injuring one other. The 1,000 tonne crane was operating in the manufacturing area of Gansu Jiayuguan Ruifeng Technology Co. Ltd, that area was rented by Baofang Ningxia Tianxing construction joint-stock company and bought by Shanghai Zhisheng Construction Co. Ltd. The investigation is ongoing and according to a Huarui official the accident was due to the boom breaking.”

“We acknowledge that Huarui Fengdian planned to hold an opening ceremony for 5M unit lifting on Oct.11th. After 8:30PM yesterday, deputy secretary of Suzhou district, jiuquan and Yu Yongle, office manager of Jiuquan industry park went to Huarui to check with ceremony preparation, but unfortunately ran into the accident There were three officers and two Huarui staff dead on the spot.”


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/10/11/crane-collapse-kills-five-in-china/