Dealing with very heavy construction equipment in the middle of a busy urban area such as New York City involves obvious risks that make the activity a dangerous one, as it is necessary.
This morning at around 8:30 a.m., a construction crane that was supposed to install air conditioning equipment on a nearby building fell over Worth Street, crashing multiple cars and damaging some of the buildings. Until now, there was only one fatality reported - a 38-year-old man caught under the crane - with multiple others injured.
The reasons behind this incident are still being investigated, but several factors must be taken into consideration, including the strong winds that blew over New York City this morning. At the moment, the New York City Fire Department is also inspecting a possible natural gas leak caused by the heavy equipment’s collapse.
It isn’t clear whether the crane, which has been identified to belong to Bay Crane, a company specializing in crane rental and transportation solutions, was in use at the time of the accident. It had been assembled at the end of last month and was last seen operational yesterday, when it was loading air conditioning equipment on the roof of the construction site. Bay Crane denied any comments.
New York Daily News reports that multiple ambulances were dispatched to the scene, as well as police officers and firefighters. The latter were required to help with the extraction of a man trapped in his car, but fortunately, there were no fires reported. As a precaution, a six-inch gas main has been cut. Police forces have shut down a good portion of Worth Street and several other adjacent to the scene of the accident.
Mayor de Blasio also arrived on the scene and set up a press office in a neighborhood building, from where he will be issuing statements as more information becomes available. You might want to switch on your TV set for more updates.
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