A 4-axle mobile crane and a tower crane has collapsed on a street in the northern Italian city of Turin, killing three construction workers and injuring passersby Saturday, firefighters and news reports said.
Two of the workers died at the scene and their bodies were extracted from the twisted blue metal, firefighters said in a tweet. The third was taken to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Italian news reports said the mobile crane was helping to assemble the tower crane when both collapsed. Part of the tower crane fell onto a building, while the rest broke into pieces on the street.
Some pedestrians were also injured in the accident.
The mayor, who visited the scene alongside other local authorities, expressed his condolences to the families of the three victims.
The crane was supposed to be set up there for work on the roof of a building and fell onto the busy street for reasons that were not yet clear. According to the report, it is believed that the base of the tower crane collapsed.
More photos of the crane accident (updated on 10 Jan 2021)
Cranepedia comment: Looking at the extensive damage to the base boom of the mobile crane, the impact on the crane collapse is definitely quite damaging. However, if it was overloaded, the mobile crane should also have tipped over during the incident. Or could the wrong boom configuration has been used for the lifting that caused the accident to happen?
Disaster in Turin: just two days earlier, a falling crane in Regensburg seriously injured two people
A very similar accident occurred in Bavaria on Thursday when a construction crane weighing tons was to be dismantled in Neutraubling near Regensburg, it fell on the roof of an indoor swimming pool under construction and was seriously injured two construction workers.
The building on which the crane fell was evacuated. According to the Upper Palatinate Police Headquarters, a structural engineer is called in to check whether the building is in danger of collapsing. The police, fire brigade and rescue service were on-site with 50 emergency services. According to the chief emergency doctor on site, no one was injured in the accident apart from the two construction workers.
