About Us	Search	Advertising

	Brought to you by:

INVESTIGATIONS are currently underway to determine the cause of Friday night's freak accident which left two people dead and one seriously injured on a construction site in Searle Street, Woodstock.

The accident, which occurred around 21:00, resulted after a newly-erected ramp gave way and a concrete slab came crushing down. Five construction workers, who are employed by Faircape Construction?s subcontractor, were under the ramp at the time of the collapse.

Police and paramedics were quick to respond to the scene, but it took another three hours before the men were freed from the rubble.

Two of the workers managed to escape unharmed, but Michael Xolani (35) and Loyiso Tambekile (21), both from Khayelitsha, were not as fortunate.

"They died on the scene," claims police spokesperson, Captain Randall Stoffels.

The fifth worker, whose name is still unknown, was taken to a nearby hospital and remained in serious condition on Saturday, says Stoffels.

Stoffels confirms that a case of culpable homicide has been opened, and as soon as all relevant statements have been obtained, it will be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutors office.

"A decision will then be made to determine whether or not anyone can or will be held responsible for the accident. At this stage we do not know what the circumstances were as to why the construction piece collapsed," he states.

The investigation will take place in conjunction with the Department of Labour, but it is a "lengthy process".

In the meantime, Faircape Construction are doing all they can to ensure they have done everything by the book.

Steven Frankal, a director of Faircape Construction, concedes that they have "a very strict code of safety and health rules that are monitored on site, and these were confirmed to have been in place at the time of the accident".

According to Frankal, it was after hours when the five construction workers had just completed a task and took shelter under the ramp where they made a fire.

"That was very dangerous as fires are not allowed on construction sites," Frankal says, adding that they believe the fire was a contributing factor to the accident.

He claims that an independent safety consultant was brought in, and Faircape are now waiting on the construction engineers to hand in a report of the assessment of the situation. Frankal describes the accident as one which is extremely rare and very unfortunate.

"Never in our 20 years of experience has this ever happened. We really take our safety extremely seriously, and this is just very tragic."

A post-mortem was conducted on Xolani and Tambekile yesterday morning, however the police say they are not at liberty to divulge any details.

	Back to top
©