2 Dead in Accident at Tokyo Construction Site

Tokyo, Sept. 19 (Jiji Press)--Two workers died in an accident involving a fall of a steel girder at a construction site in the Yaesu district of Tokyo's Chuo Ward on Tuesday.

They were confirmed dead after being sent to hospital, according to the Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo Fire Department. A total of five male workers in their 20s to 40s, including the two, were involved in the incident, which happened around 9:20 a.m.

The other three workers suffered injuries and were also transported to hospital. They are not in life-threatening conditions.

According to the Tokyo police, a steel girder being suspended from a crane for installation fell from the seventh-floor section of a building under construction at the site to the third-floor section. The five workers are believed to have been on the girder when it dropped, and the two who died, aged 33 and 43, were crushed under it.

All five men were subcontractor employees, according to major Japanese general contractor Obayashi Corp., which leads the consortium for the project. A total of five girders 13 to 18 meters in length and weighing some 48 tons in total, including four that had already been installed, fell up to about 20 meters in the accident.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]