10 persons crushed to death after crane collapses at Hindustan Shipyard in Vizag

Visakhapatnam: Eleven persons were crushed to death when a giant crane collapsed at Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam city on Saturday morning.

The 70-tonne crane, which was built by the Mumbai-based Anupam Cranes two years ago but was yet to be made operational, had been undergoing load testing when the mishap took place.

JUST IN: At least 10 persons were crushed to death when a giant crane collapsed at Hindustan Shipyard limited at Visakhapatnam. More on https://t.co/X6u8VmjtSE | @SreeniExpress pic.twitter.com/eO728JvjRI

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Visakhapatnam District Collector V Vinay Chand said that HSL had outsourced the operations of the crane to Greenfield Company, which co-opted Lead Engineers and Quad7 Company for maintenance operations.

“Today morning they were testing the load capability of the crane when the base portion and the overhead cabin separated resulting in the collapse of the crane. Ten persons were in the cabin including 3 employees of Greenfield company, 2 of Lead Engineers and 1 of Quad7 apart from four permanent employees of Hindustan Shipyard. All of them died when the cabin crashed. One other person who is yet to be identified also died,” Vinay Chand said.

Officials said that HSL has initiated an inquiry while the government has ordered a parallel probe into the incident to ascertain if there was any negligence on part of the officials.

Officials said that no one was injured in the incident and that all the 11 who were present in the crane died.