One of three excavators demolishing the Kuwait Airways building (from the roof down) fell nine stories when the floor underneath the excavator collapsed. The operator of the excavator sadly passed away. [Source]
I drove by the building earlier today on my way to my barber and noticed they had firetrucks blocking the main road in front of the Kuwait Airways building. I figured it was for safety incase the building collapsed into the street. Only while I was getting a haircut did I get an email from the blog Sala6a informing me of the collapse. So when I left the barber, I passed by the site and noticed an excavator busy digging around the area of the collapse. I couldn’t see the excavator that fell but I could see the other two abandoned excavators on the roof.
It’s dangerous enough when it’s just one excavator on the roof, but three??? How many workers have to die before the authorities put a stop to this? The video on top, shot with a drone shows where the excavator fell through. The other two excavators were lucky to survive.
18 replies on “Excavator Falls Through Kuwait Airways Building”
So sad, I can’t count how many times I’ve watched the demolition of buildings and wondered why they are doing it that way. They have to come up with an alternative, although using dynamite to implode the buildings would be scary if the person doing the job wasn’t a professional.
This practice will not stop until some one is willing to do it.
And yea, who does it? a poor expat, whay? cuz he has no option but to follow instructions. So dont expect any changes in the rules.As yet.
This is beyond sad.
Another method must be used, I hope that this will be a wake up call to increase safety in future demolitions.
SAFER.FASTER.CHEAPER. (Pick any two.)
They said the building had to be torn down because it was structurally unsound, and yet after three months of demolition by excavators they had only managed to take off a few floors so they add more and more excavators till the floor collapsed. Brilliant.
Seems to be that building was built solid and there was nothing wrong with it except its age.
If you want to stop this make the Kuwaiti who owns the company doing the work to sit inside with the worker. It will end tomorrow. Life is cheap in Kuwait as long as it’s not a Kuwaiti!
So so so so sad someone has passed away – although this, unfortunately, was expected!
Heavy equipment on the roof of a building they’re trying to demolish, what else do these *&%$@# expect?
https://248am.com/mark/information/excavator-crashes-through-roof/
Really horrific.
No safety measures will ever be taken unless the one in the damn excavator is a local.
Wholeheartedly agree with Simple_man.
Expats is a wide term. In Kuwait it narrows down to a few nationalities. I am sure most are aware of which ones.
Besides, even the authorities/governments of those nationalities need to be blamed for not supporting or voicing out their concerns for their own citizens.
as long as they continue being gay abt their people, such incidents will continue.
Its always a 2 way street!!
cant understand how you guys brought it to being a Kuwaiti or not at the end. ok we all feel sad but at the end, you cannot run away from death. when the time comes, (this is the rule for all of us), we all die and something just becomes the reason. it can be an accident, fire, heart attack or whatever. history is full of stories of people who hide themselves in castles or towers to run away from death. at the end they all die. all we can do is being sad and wishing patience from God for the people who are left behind this man. May God take his soul to heaven.
It is very sad to hear about this. As an engineer I would not use an excavator to demolish a build because there is no safety factor and it was not invented to do this. Dynamite is my option to demolish buildings or use a wrecking ball instead. Dynamite takes 5 seconds and the building is down and could be recycled too. Watch a demolition of a building in Vegas video done by professionals, it like a spectacle. The contractor is at fault and should be held liable. The cheapest way is not always the safest. The guy was a 35 yr old bedoun. God have mercy on his soul.
I am not sure if dynamite would also be used correctly and without any abuse ! No guarantees here.
“Dynamite takes 5 seconds and the building is down”
Yeah, demolition will takes 5 seconds, but it will takes months to properly calculate and fix dynamites on each floor. People who can do this are extremely professional and their service is very expensive. How much is salary for poor expat operators who’s demolishing this things with excavators? 200, maximum 300kd I guess… Sadly nobody cares about expats here, people who are behind building luxury towers in Kuwait city, can easily afford professional demolition experts and do it without accidents, but for some people “Dinar > Human Life”.
Then why do most building demolitions in America use excavators not controlled explosives? We have some of the strictest safety codes in the world.
In America, most building demolitions use excavators rather than controlled explosives. We also have some of the strictest safety codes in the world.
So- seems like this is another opportunity to ‘kuwaiti-bash’. Pathetic really.
First of all- I doubt whether the ‘authorities’ recommended that the building be demolished with three excavators on a roof- although if anyone could produce the report where this was required that would be useful.
Secondly, who/ what nationality was the chief engineer / foreman on the job? Who presumably had been given the responsibility as per job description, to oversee the demolition.
Instead of kuwaiti bashing , what about calling out for properly qualified demolition experts ? Properly qualified plumbers? Properly qualified electricians? Properly qualified builders? Ironically, in the ‘west’ these are the people ( with trades ) who are rolling in the money nowadays. There’s no shame in learning a trade and perhaps we need colleges to teach them ….
It is just so dumb to demolish buildings in this manner. No other country in the world does this. Just barricade the place and conduct a controlled demolision.