3 workers die after fall from roof

Workers setting up a hoarding on the roof of a building at Badamtoli in the capital yesterday without safety gear. Such unsafe construction work often leads to fatal accidents. Three workers died Tuesday after falling from an under-construction building in the city's Bashundhara area. Photo: Rashed Shumon

Three construction workers died after falling from the rooftop of an under-construction building at Bashundhara residential area in the capital's Badda on Tuesday.
The deceased are Nur Islam, 25, his brother Nuruzzaman, 28, of Nageshwari upazila in Kurigram, and Mohammad Alam, 28, of Tarakanda upazila in Mymensingh.
Fellow workers, who witnessed the accident, said they fell from the rooftop of a seven-storey building of Bashundhara Group while trying to remove a lifting machine around 9:50am.
They were immediately rushed to the Apollo Hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.
The bodies were sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue for autopsy yesterday morning, said Mahbubur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Badda Police Station.
Miazul Islam, head mechanic at the construction site, told The Daily Star six workers were trying to remove rusty screws of the machine installed at a corner of the roof.
At one stage of their work, Nuruzzaman lost his balance and was about to fall from the roof. As Nur Islam and Alam came to Nuruzzaman's aid to save him from falling, they also lost their balance. The trio along with the machine fell to the ground, Miazul said.
Habibur Rahman, sub-contractor of the project site of East West Property Development Ltd, a concern of Bashundhara Group, said the three had been working at the site for last four years.
Contacted, Mohammad Abu Tayeb, spokesman of Bashundhara Group, said “Though the workers were employed by our sub-contractor, we gave monetary help to the victims' family members.”
He claimed that proper safety measures were taken at the site.
According to Safety and Rights Society, an organisation working with work-place accidents, a total of 142 workers' deaths at construction sites of Bangladesh were reported in newspapers in 2010.
However, experts working on safety issues said the number of deaths at construction sites is much higher than the reported figure as the Dhaka Medical College morgue and its emergency department alone receive one or two such victims every day.
As there is no government authority to monitor safety for workers and safety measures at construction sites, the owners are indifferent to this crucial need.