Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

ACCIDENT

Fatal workplace mishaps claim two lives

Two workers died on the job in Sweden on Wednesday in two separate accidents involving cranes, less than a week after two workers died after drowning in coal tar at a coke plant.

Published: 24 October 2013 08:28 CEST

Fatal workplace mishaps claim two lives

In one accident, a 63-year-old crane operator died after a ten-metre long post came loose and hit him in the head. The accident took place near the Rörvik dock on the island of Orust off Sweden’s west coast.

Workers were operating a crane on a barge located several metres from shore in an effort to secure the posts into the seabed. For some unknown reason, one of the posts fell from the crane, striking the 63-year-old. He was rushed to Norra Älvsborgs hospital where he later died from his injuries.

The second accident took place in central Malmö. Two workers were up in a bucket lift stringing up Christmas lights on lamp posts when their truck was struck by another truck.

One worker, a 64-year-old man, fell several metres to the ground, while his colleague managed to remain dangling in the bucket. Witnesses reported seeing the man lying bloodied on the ground as ambulance workers tried to revive him.

He was taken to hospital, but doctors were unable to save him.

The truck that struck the crane was driven by a student driver in upper secondary school who was accompanied by an instructor, the Sydsvenskan newspaper reported.

While no one is currently suspected of committing any crime in connection with the accident in Malmö, two police reports were filed, one for a workplace accident and the other for a traffic violation.

The two deaths come just days after two workers died at a coke plant in northern Sweden after drowning in coal tar that spilled out of a tank during routine maintenance. The incident, which took place at a facility operated by steel-maker SSAB, sparked anger from unions about lax workplace safety.

“It is completely unacceptable that there are such shortcomings in the working environment that people die on the job,” IF Metall spokesman Anders Ferbe told the TT news agency at the time.

TT/The Local/dl

Follow The Local on Twitter

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

READ ALSO:

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.

Url copied to clipboard!