Photo: Collected
Three people were killed and eight injured on Friday (12 July) when scaffolding collapsed off a 19-storey building under construction in the western Swiss city of Lausanne, police said. The scaffolding collapsed shortly before 9:30 am (0730 GMT), falling "like a house of cards", according to one witness.
The entire scaffolding structure on one side of the 60-metre (200-foot) tower came down, sending construction workers plummeting to the ground. Regional police said around a dozen people were directly impacted by the accident in Prilly, on the outskirts of Lausanne, including the three construction workers who died.
Friday evening, police said they had identified the deceased as a 43-year-old Swiss man, a 35-year-old from Cape Verde and a 30-year-old Frenchman. The men's families had been informed and were receiving psychological support, the police statement said.
Four of those who survived were seriously injured. They and two people who were moderately injured had been taken to nearby hospitals, police said. AFP journalists saw yellow-clad firefighters clambering on top of a jumble of twisted metal at the foot of the building, while others worked to stabilise the remaining parts of the scaffolding.
Police said that work would continue through the night and into Saturday, even as poor weather conditions were complicating the job. Police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel said the cause of the accident remained unclear.
"We see that the scaffolding across the entire facade has collapsed, but we do not know the causes," he said, adding that the public prosecutor's office had opened an investigation.
Messenger/Disha
