Construction Site: 3 workers die falling from 10th floor

Lack of safety measures once again led to a tragic accident in the capital's Siddheshwari area, where three construction workers died after they fell from an under-construction building yesterday.

The deceased were identified as Joynul, 18, Sayeem, 17, and Jahangir, 26, all hailing from Uttar Alampur village of Golapganj upazila in Sylhet, said Bachchu Mia, sub-inspector of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) police outpost.

Moshiure Rahman, officer-in-charge of Ramna police station, told The Daily Star that it happened for lack of implementation of safety measures and negligence of supervision by the construction company.

“We have visited the spot but haven't found any one from the building authorities,” he said, adding a case for “negligence of supervision” would be filed regarding the incident.

“The three victims fell off from the 10th floor of the building around 3:00pm while they were working on a bamboo scaffolding to set up a lift,” Shipon, a worker at the site, told The Daily Star.

The three were rushed to DMCH immediately where the duty doctors declared them dead.

Shipon said around 25 youths from Sylhet were working at the construction site for the past one year. Yesterday, they started working around 8.00am and the three fell off just after the lunch break.

Visiting the spot, this correspondent found three security guards guarding the under-construction building. Some broken pieces of bamboo and blood stains were seen on the building's basement where the three workers fell.

No official from the construction company was found at the site.

When contacted, an officer of Rupayan Group, the site's construction company, wishing not to be named, said they are aware of the incident and were looking into the matter.

According to Bangladesh Occupational safety, Health and Environment Foundation, around 147 construction workers died in 2016.