Today, another accident happened at the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project at the Semantan work site. The accident involved steel rod bars which fell on the workers as they were trying to make a circular frame. Somehow during the assembly, the tie gave way and five or six steel rods fell onto the workers. It fell from a height of five or six feet according to the Fire and Rescue Department assistant director (operations) Azizan Ismail. Each of the long steel rods weigh 40kg. The dead worker is Rijaul Abdul Goni, 40-year-old worker from Bangladesh. The injured worker, Shanuallah, 37, also a Bangladesh national has been sent to Hospital Kuala Lumpur. No further details were available as to the extent of the injury sustained. Another worker who was involved but did not sustain any injuries would be a wtiness during the course of investigation.
This is not the first accident. Three Bangladeshi construction workers were killed in Kota Damansara site last August when a 38m-long span weighing 650 tonnes fell after getting dislodged from a guideway. In June last year, a driver had a lucky escape when a slab of metal fell from an MRT site in Pusat Bandar Damansara onto the main road. It crushed the passenger side of the car. The driver was unhurt.
Personally, I think MRT is too huge a project to stop. Yet, all these accidents does not give confidence to me because I pass these MRT sites everyday when I drive to work and back home. My colleague just told me few weeks ago that when she nears these sites, she tries her best to drive through as fast as possible. Nevertheless, if everyone expects zero accidents, it may be too far fetched as well because while processes can be well though out, mistakes would happen. This is especially true when workers somehow took some precautionary steps too lightly. Blaming the supervisors then? My friend who’s a site supervisor told me that it is not easy for a supervisor to be able to control everything that happens. Let’s hope these accidents no longer happen and the workers really do take safety steps seriously. As for me, I will still try not to pass by these sites if I can. Safe drive.
written on 27 Feb 2015
Next suggested article: Will MRT Malaysia really start on time? Sure?
Leave a Reply