Scaffold disaster shocks small town

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 8

Scaffold disaster shocks small town

NZPA-Reuter St Mary’s (West Virginia) I Sobbing relatives yesterday gathered outside a temporary mortuary in St Mary’s, West Virginia, to identify 51 workers killed when 'scaffolding on a construction site collapsed and crashed 50 metres to the ground, on Thursday. The small, close-knit town of 3500 people on the banks of the Ohio River was in a 'state of shock at the disaster.

One man. Lee Steel, lost four sons and four other relatives when the circular scaffolding collapsed inside a partially-completed cooling tower on a power station site.

Some 42 workers were on top of the scaffolding when it wrenched loose from the

cooling tower and started to piunge to the ground. Two of them escaped death by clinging to the top of the tower as the metal structure fell away beneath them.

Eleven others were crushed to death, caught on the ground by falling masonry and scaffolding, eye-wit-nesses said.

Federal labour inspectors from the Occupational: Safety and Health Adminis-j tration are trying to der-j mine the cause of the col-1 ■'lapse. The Charleston, West iVirginia, “Gazette” reported, J that some construction, workers complained that, foremen were rushing the! j project and not owing' 1 the tower’s concrete to dry [sufficiently. However, the newspaper [said construction supervisors .blamed the accident on the iscaffold itself.