NYC Construction Crane Collapse Kills Several

A crane has collapsed in the upper east side of New York. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Top floor of an apartment building was severely damaged when the crane came down at east 91st street and 1st Avenue.

Fire crews and police are at the scene and are trying to establish whether anyone is trapped in the twisted wreckage. Some people have been pulled from the rubble but their condition is unknown. However Fox News is saying at least two people have died. In March a twenty story crane collapsed killing 7 people [Sky News / BBC] - reported by http://tvnewswatch.blogspot.com

A blog, named New York State Communist Party reports on the NYC Construction Crane Collapse
http://newyorkcp.blogspot.com

Yet another construction crane has fallen in New York City. At the corner of 91st Street and First Avenue a crane attached to a newly constructed building fell some twenty stories smashing into an occupied apartment building across the street and destroying cars below.

It is unknown how many casualties there are are. Over 100 firefighters are on the scene doing rescue work.

This is just the latest of a series of dramatic construction accidents in the city amounting to the death of 17 construction workers in the first five months of the year, more than the total deaths in all of 2007.

The most recent crane collapse led to the resignation of the head of the city's Department of Buildings and promises from Mayor Michael Bloomberg that it will never happen again. He also said the equivalent of "accidents happen." A representative of the builders association was reported as saying "no increased regulation could have stopped the collapse."

After years of reduced inspectors in the office, the City has promised additional inspectors and stopped all crane operations for a few days. But now the race to develop new construction in the city is back on. Much new construction is actually illegal or in violation of zoning laws, but it continues hoping to slip through

If workers or residents have been killed in the latest disaster, they are certainly victims of runaway development in Manhattan, which has gone almost unfettered during the economic recession. Corruption, rapacious greed, graft, government incompetence and lack of oversight has led to this situation and more construction accidents will happen until a drastic change will happen.

Breaking news: New York 1 television is reporting at least three suspected dead and the crane operator is trapped in the cab which has fallen to the ground.

"You will remember in the previous crane collapse that the inspector who had just signed off on the safety of the crane was arrested due to the fact that he failed to actually perform any on-site inspection. Given the political culture of New York City (especially now that a raving left-wing kook like Bloomberg is mayor rather than a sensible adult like Rudolph Giuliani) I suspect that there is rather a lot of that kind of thing going on.

"I recommend that they hire a firm from outside the Northeast to reinspect all the city's cranes. And it wouldn't be a bad idea to have people from the DA's office or NYPD accompany those inspectors in the field either," writes Hillbilly White Trash http://hillbillywhitetrash.blogspot.com/