On Tuesday, a crane collapsed on Sydney Harbour causing some damage to the famous face of Luna Park.
After the crane collapsed, one of its metal wires hit Luna Park’s iconic face entrance. Luckily no one was injured in the accident. The work on the harbour site was immediately stopped after the incident.
About three weeks back, a big crane had toppled into an apartment building in Wolli Creek.
The crane that collapsed on Tuesday was a purpose-built 220-tonne crane, and was installed on a barge off Milsons Point. It was being used in the upgradation work at the Milsons Point ferry wharf near Luna Park. When wire snapped, four workers were attempting to remove huge mooring blocks under the water.
“There’s just been an absolute, unbelievable, near-miss,” Maritime Union of Australia spokesman Paul Garrett told reporters.
“It only has to go a couple of degrees either way and someone’s dead.”
A person who saw the crane falling into Sydney Harbour said he thought a bomb had gone off. He also pointed the finger at SafeWork NSW that has overall responsibility for workplace safety.
“Self-regulation is alright if you’re working in an office and the worst thing that can happen to you is a paper cut,” he said.
SafeWork executive director Peter Dunphy admitted the incident as a “catastrophic failure”.
“We are very committed to ensuring that all aspects of crane safety are complied with in NSW,” Mr Dunphy told reporters.
Luna Park managing director Peter Hearne confirmed that there was “some damage to the face where the wires hit the top when the crane collapsed.”
“There’s some damage you can see from ground level. We need to go up and assess the damage.
Daniel Da Silva, who heard the bang from neighbouring Lavender Bay said that the barge was being used to construct the Milsons Point Ferry Wharf.
“I heard the bang but didn’t know what it was so I jumped in the tender and raced out to see if one of our tenants’ boats had exploded,” Daniel Da Silva said.
“In all my years working on the water I have never seen anything like this … we have tourists go past that exact location almost daily, so, we are lucky no one was killed.”
