Updated: Scaffolding collapses in Sliema

@D Mercieca
Missing the point ? What ? Doing best to save your life and that of your relatives ? Just go to Mosta in Constitution Street and take a look at the construction site passageway mocked up under a tower crane just across the road facing the Mosta local council. Its a death trap waiting to snap. The very fact that the whole brick shambles is protruding out on the main road is ridiculously asking for some vehicle to accidentally crash into it, thus burying pedestrians alive. OHSA approved or not - No Thanks. My safest standard there is to use the other side of the road ! 21st Century or not, if you feel comfortable enjoying the breeze on a bench (as Mrs Henderson stated below) just under the very nose of any construction site then that is up to you. Irrespective of whoever boasts or not a Health & Safety approval billboard, it is always a danger zone. So stay away from it or at least make it quick. Got the point ? Hope this saves some lives !



no Standards will ever guarantee you peace of mind. If

Eric Camilleri's comments are fine - but missing the point. We are in the 21st century, yet when it comes to Health & Safety we are still in the dark ages. It SHOULD be ok to walk underneath scaffolding, regulations ARE in place to protect both workers and pedestrians. Unfortunately, as G O'Reilly stated, people treat H&S as a LAUGHING matter. Will it take a multi-million euro law suit to change this attitude? I'm sure the company involved would NOT be happy to hear from someone's lawyers.... or would the traditional 'old boys network' come into effect? It's a shame that the few companies who DO take H&S seriously are not allowed to advertise accordingly.

A lot of questions need to be answered by the responsible people including but not limited to the Contractor, his project manager and safety officer, and the Inspectors of the Health and Safety Agency.

As somebody before me has stated, this case should be treated by the Police Authorities as a criminal act, and it is expected that whoever is responsible, to be charged in court, and if found guilty to be severely punished. In the lack of serious action by the authorities to safeguard the citizens and tourists, then the onus falls on the police and courts to set the example.

Think out of the box. Never trust anybody. Avoid walking under construction work and if you have to be there then make it short. I had my fair share of experiences at a local shipyard, with missiles ranging from small bolts travelling down at bullet speed, humans and structures quantified in tonnes. Our frontal vision limits us to a narrow view and hardly anyone bothers to glance sideways/backwards, let alone upwards. Unrelated but ironically, pigeon droppings are one eyeopener. Why walk over a droppings riddled pavement when you have the choice to avoid it. We are burdened with gravity so anything that is dropped from a height will slam to the ground. The safest measure is not to stand underneath it. No construction pedestrian "safety conscious" passageway is ever safe enough for me. I am never comfortable with any dog owner stating "its ok it doesn't bite". If a crane is there, judge the radius of danger and cross over to the other side of the road. If you have no choice then trot as fast as you possibly can and no precaution by "others" should ever be good enough for you. Avoid being a statistic or a news headline.

Thanks God he always protects us!! If it wasn't that I don't know how much the toll of dead and injured will rise every year in Malta as its looks nobody cares about health and safety!
What happened about the cases when people died while construction works were being carried out? There are at least 4 cases pending which I can remember and more then 4 years passed!
When someone will be jailed if found guilty of negligence?
The more time pass less proves can be shown, people forget, its all in their favour !
That's why people abuse!

There's a chain of apaty in every sector and no one is accountable for his actions!

Had the scaffolders or managment recieved any training to put up the structure? and if not why were they allowed to work in such a heavily occupied pedestrian area putting their own lives and the general publics at risk.When will the ohs and goverment bodies wake up and regulate this high risk sector of construction.

I arrived on the scene of this accident at 3:00 pm to find, as I feared, a literal plate of spaghetti adorning the pavement.
This incedent was not surprising considering I had carried out a visual inspection of said scaffolding on Friday and noted the total lack of internal bracing, missing toe boards, handrails, and boarded working platforms. To top this off the structure appeared to be tied to the facade with bits of wire and a few jacks.
I approached three operatives of the contractor involved and asked them how they felt about the incedent who told me that they did not care and that Health and Saftey was nothing but a joke shortly before they began threatening me with bodily harm!
There is much we can say about what makes an accident but this issue goes deeper than that. How can we ensure that scaffoldings are properly erected if there is no register of qualified scaffolders? How can the OHS ensure that a temporary structure is safe if they have never been trained?
The the truth is that there ARE qualified individuals who respect their trade(scaffolding) here in Malta why are these cowboys left to endanger our lives.

Only yesterday I was walking in Hughes hallet Street when I saw a group of tourists just miss being seriously hurt by falling heavy masonry from a newly built block, this is the second such incident in the same street within three months on two different buildings,to say nothing of the balcony collapsing in Locker Street seriously injuring an old lady a few weeks ago. It is not only scaffolding or cranes which should be subject to checks but also newly built apartment blocks such as the one in Hughes Hallet Street.

In 2004 & 2006 the EU countries, Malta included, met to discuss directive 2001/45/EC, dealing with Working at Heights. Since then they have failed to transmit talk into action.

In 2003 OHSA (Malta) issued- Guidance on Working at Heights, yet everyday and everywhere gross carelessness is evident on the place of work, especially in the construction sites.

Minister John Dall during a press conference to mark the successful completion of the EU Twinning Light project between The Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) and the German Association for Social Security and Research (GVG) said ...“In this regard, the OHSA has taken the bull by its horns by embarking on a very ambitious exercise which reduces the occurrence of accidents by 25 per cent until 2015”

While the UHM is preoccupied by the number of accidents on the place of work.

What does it take for all those concerned, Administration, Unions and Employers, to move in quick time from talk to action to minimise accidents especially does resulting in loss of life.

Legislate and enforce to save lives, reduce accidents and provide an even playing field to all contractors

Workplaces are not going through a Risk Assesment.Site Inspections should be carried out on a regular basis."IOSH" are only on the scene when accidents happen,were are they in the mean time.
Its about time all Companies employ a Safety Officer on full time.Especially in the construction scene.Risk Assesments / Safety Drills / Training and most important site inspections should be done round the clock.On the long run it will be very cost effective to employ these HSE guys as the cost of an on the site accident could be of a disaster for the companies image and financial fork out...

A second serious accident at a construction site in Sliema. Recently a heavy object fell into the road injuring a worker below and endangering pedestrians. Who on earth allows these things to happen? Do they sleep at night? (C Busuttil Sliema)

It is obvious that whoever erected this scaffolding did not run a risk management excercise and I know for a fact, because I served as Executive Secretary with a Local Council for 11 years that when a permit to erect a scaffolding is issued by a Local Council, this is issued without any specific conditions about safety, because none exist.
Apart from this, unless I am mistaken, the Health & Safety Authority is only concerned with the safety of the people working on the scaffolding and not the safety of pedestrians!!!

For clarification, as Neil Dent correctly suggested, my initial comments were of a sarcastic nature.

The Health and Safety Authority is investigating!!!!!!!!! Where was this Authority? Clever chaps going after this has happened. We pay our taxes and their salaries to prevent these incidents from happening. .Prevention is better than cure!! But the authorities have never heard of this. This should never have happened and it happens because there are people like Mr Farrugia who seems to be very complacent with his attitude. The worst thing in life. This should have been avoided and the persons responsible should have their permit revoked. They are inefficient and irresponsible. Health and Safety my foot. Who gave the go ahead ? Was this inspected? But then I suppose that all these comments of the cizitens are for nothing.

our premises was one of the shops involved. no keith you're wrong. there was no health and safety involved and no competent survey carried out. many people could have died today. the square is popular with students, shop and office employes having their break in the sun. i have just returned home and believe me the photo does no justice to the disaster on site. you have to be there to believe it.

The outcome of the investigation would be interesting. Were the people who erected the scaffolding competent? Was the scaffolding certified? When was it last certified? Was there a method statement for the works being carried out? Were there people who "walked by" and did not do anything as it appears from the comments below? Was a safety manager employed forthe site? Hopefully the investigation will answer these questions but the root of the problem is that the construction industry needs to wake up as far as safety on site is concerned.

Accidents do happen, but in Malta they seem to happen very often. Someone should take responsability for this accident keeping in mind that it was erected on a pavement. PLEASE TAKE ACTION.

In a previous comment about driving around Malta, I had mentioned that sometimes I thought I was driving through Jurassic Park. One had better believe that Dinosaurs bite !

If a death did not occur, it is only by chance. Apart from the workers who were injured, had people been walking under or near the scaffolding. Like children for example, the chances are that they would have been killed. This collapse should be treated like a criminal investigation. Death did not occur out of luck. Whoever installed the scaffolding should be brought to justice and severly punished if it is proven that it was done through neglegence. An example to society is required and this case should be used for just that.

accidents will always happen. So please cut out this comedy. No matter how hard one tries to prevent accidents, the fact remains that yes, accidents do occur. And there is nothing one can do about it.

For K Camilleri - I'm sure K Vella was being mildly ironic/sarcastic in his comment. I have a feeling he agrees with your own sentiments.
We all witness the sorry state of construction (un)safety standards ALMOST everywhere we look. Now that this is happened, and people have been hurt, will something be done!? That's the way things usually work here after all!

Authorities please wake up. This is the second accident in this area related to building sites. Please do something about it quickly!!!!!!!!

This is the land where a knotted hanky is considered essential safety equipment. I've just seen the accident site and I am surprised that nobody was killed.
By the way.......has anyone checked if there are people trapped in the loos just under the scaffolding.................

i was so lucky because i saw the scaffolding swaying dangerously and i ran a mile. because where i was sitting on the bench was crushed 2 seconds later so at the minute i am very shaky

In reply to Mr. Keith Vella, I do not think that a scaffolding certified by a competent engineer would fall on its own on a very little wind day. We might have many fancy laws regards scaffolding in this country but it seems like a lot of companies are not abiding by these laws. To make matters worse the people that should be taking care of seeing that these laws are abided to are very limited in number and cannot keep up with reporting the vast numbers of illegal structures. This is making our island very unsafe for both workers that are using the scaffolding and pedestrians passing by them.

How is it we never learn? Once I learnt that only a very small percentage of accidents cannot be prevented. Was this one of them?

Why am I not surprised? I have walked by this scaffolding and others like it on a daily basis. I see cranes swinging precariously above our head everywhere. Nobody in authority gives a flying monkey's. Construction regulations my foot. I'm just sorry for the people who had to be treated and hope they don't suffer serious injuries.

I have no doubts that the structure was certified by a competent engineer and that all health and safety regulations were observed.