Catastrophe Examples
Three bodies remained trapped under rubble after a building collapsed in Stellenbosch, Emergency services said early that morning after the accident occured. The three were among five construction workers killed when the two-storey building, in Onder Pappegaaiberg, collapsed during renovation work the previous afternoon. Thirteen workers were injured in the incident, four of them seriously.
Two St Charles women, a mother and daughter, were injured on July 8 when a Bulldozer, being towed by a tractor-trailer , fell from the trailer and crushed their motor car. The women were seriously injured when the bulldozer smashed their car. The mother suffered a serious head injury and recovered in hospital. The daughter was in a coma for several weeks.
A 33-year-old man was seriously injured when chemicals at a packaging factory near Durban ignited on Wednesday. Netcare spokesperson Chris Botha said the man had burns to 60% of his body and was airlifted to St Augustine's hospital. The blast occurred at Nampak Flexible Origin, a division of the packaging conglomerate Nampak. The cause of the blast was not immediately known, but Durban metro fire divisional commander Roger Jones said: "They had been decanting some chemicals and it ignited." He said an area of 20 square metres was engulfed in flames. It was not immediately known which chemicals had been handled. A Nampak employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the man had gone to a store room to pour some chemicals on his own. He said: "The next moment he came out with flames. It was a horrible sight." Nineteen workers were injured in an explosion at a site adjacent to Sasol's plant in Sasolburg on Tuesday. The explosion happened while chemicals were being transferred into a tanker.
The backhoe accident occurred on August 1, 1997, while Efren Rivera was working at the Frito-Lay facility located in Fort Bend County, Texas. During the course and scope of his employment with Haskell Corporation, Plaintiff, and co-workers Lopez and Serrano, were located in a ten foot hole assisting in the excavation of same by leveling and cleaning the bottom of the hole and shoveling dirt into the bucket of the backhoe. While Plaintiff was located in the hole with his co-workers, with no advance warning, the Case 580 L backhoe bucket suddenly swung backhoe around and hit Plaintiff in the head, causing him to sustain severe head injuries which resulted in his death.
A hole left uncovered by construction workers has claimed the life of another child. Two months after three-year-old Mpho Ralieta plunged to his death down a manhole in Katlehong, Ekurhuleni, an 11-year-old Doornkop, Soweto, boy drowned in a trench in his neighbourhood at about 1pm on Monday. The lifeless body of Thabiso Ramaota lay covered in a white plastic sheet next to an emergency vehicle on Monday in Doornkop's Block 4, near Dobsonville, as other children - oblivious of the tragedy - continued jumping on trampolines. Members of the community said the water-filled trenches were left uncovered since construction workers dug it up to fix some water pipes about a month prior to the accident.
A 35-year-old adminstrative worker is suing the parent company of GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World for R950 000 in damages, claiming that she sustained injuries when the roof of the GrandWest Casino gave wap and a workman fell on top of her four years ago.
