Sevens workers died and one was seriously injured when a container gantry crane collapsed while it was being assembled earlier this week at Cai Lan Port in Vietnam’s northern Quang Ninh Province.
The eight victims were employed by Lilama 692, part of Vietnam Machinery Installation Corporation, and the cranes were being assembled for Vietnam Falcon Shipping Company, an affiliate of Vinalines. Twelve other workers who were working on the ground at the time escaped uninjured.
Lilama had brought in two new crawler cranes with a load capacity of 130t to aid the crane assembly process. One of the crawler cranes was broken in the accident. The collapsed crane was one of two cranes bought from China to replace two similar cranes that were wrecked by a typhoon in November 2006.
It had been in use at Shekou Port since 1992 and was reportedly acquired by Quang Ninh Port Complex for US$2M.
Just a few days before the Vietnam tragedy, the boom of a container crane collapsed onto a Maersk containership at APM Terminals’ Apapa concession in Lagos. No-one was hurt in this incident and damage to the 2001-built, 2506 TEU German-flagged SANTA ALINA was said to be slight. The crane is understood to have been sourced second-hand by APMT from the USA.
