Work at Height Fatalities in the Repair, Maintenance, Alteration, and Addition Works
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134, Issue 7
Abstract
Hong Kong’s construction industry has shown significant improvement in safety performance since the turn of the century. The number of industrial accidents in the construction industry has decreased from 11,925 in 2000 to 3,833 in 2004, which is an encouraging drop of almost 68%. However, the category “fall of person from height” has always represented a large proportion of the industrial accidents, particularly fatal accidents. In 2004, fall of person from height represented just over 47% of the total number of fatal accidents in the construction industry. The statistics show that although the overall number of accidents has dropped immensely, the same does not apply for fall from height accidents. According to statistics provided by the Labor Dept. of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, there were a total of 22 fatal industrial accidents associated with fall of persons from height in repair, maintenance, alteration, and addition works during 2000–2004. When analyzing these case studies, 12 common factors were identified for analyzing these case studies and strategies were suggested to prevent recurrence of similar accidents in each case. The top five strategies were: (1) provide and maintain a safe system of work; (2) provide a suitable working platform; (3) (tier) provide safety information/training/instruction/supervision; (4) (tier) provide suitable fall arresting system/anchorage; and (5) maintain safe workplace.
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Acknowledgments
The writers gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The work described in this paper was also supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (RGC Project No. PolyU 5103/07E). In addition, the content of this paper is based on case studies provided by the Labor Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134 • Issue 7 • July 2008
Pages: 527 - 535
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 14, 2006
Accepted: Jan 9, 2008
Published online: Jul 1, 2008
Published in print: Jul 2008
Authors
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