Crane collapses on a hospital building in West Midlands, UK

On April 9, 2019, a tower crane partially collapsed onto the roof of Smethwick's Midland Metropolitan Hospital construction site in United Kingdom.

According to local Fire Service department, a 20-meter part of the machinery detached when the crane was being dismantled. Officials state that the building did not suffer extensive damage and, fortunately, no one was injured.

The hospital is currently under construction and it will not be operational until 2022. The facility will be accomplished at a cost of $450 million. Initially, it was supposed to be completed by late 2018 but Carillion, the construction company, went bankrupt in January 2018.

After the incident, workers were evacuated. According to a hospital's spokesman, Health and Safety Executive had been informed about the incident which will be thoroughly investigated. Construction works will continue once the site is totally safe again.

Balfour Beatty, a construction company, is now in charge of bringing the construction site back to its initial conditions. "The health and safety of the public and our workforce is always our primary concern and we can confirm that no one was hurt as a result of this incident. The surrounding area was immediately secured and works have now ceased on site while the crane section is safely removed, after which works will resume. An investigation is on-going into the cause and therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time," a spokesperson from Balfour Beatty, who has been working on site, stated.