An accident during a bridge beam lift in the Netherlands sadly left two workers dead and two injured last Wednesday.
Two cranes were lifting an arch element, one of three, for the Nettelhorst Road Bridge over the Twente Canal in the town of Lochem in the western province of Guelderland.
The two cranes, one from Aertssen and one from Michielsens, were working in tandem to position the beam when it dropped. It hit three workers, killing two and injuring one. A fourth worker fell from a pier during the incident.
Footage of the aftermath shows a crowd of spectators who had been watching the operation.
The project’s contractor is BAM Infra. The client is Provincie Guelderland.
The accident is under investigation by the Dutch labour inspectorate, Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie.
In 2015, a bridge lifting accident in Alphen aan den Rijn, which lies between The Hague and Amsterdam, saw two barge-mounted cranes crashing on to buildings. A 2016 report by the Dutch Safety Board, Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid (link opens in new tab) blamed an unstable set-up and inexperienced operators.
