Cranes jutting out dangerously from construction sites into the space above streets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are worrying people who have to travel under them.

Such concern follows a series of accidents caused by crane collapses that have recently occurred in these two large cities as well as other localities, killing several people and injuring many others.

On Wednesday, at the construction site of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway project, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper correspondents saw several cranes projecting out above the heads of many people who were traveling on Hoang Cau Street near Dong Da Lake in Dong Da District, Hanoi.

Whenever such cranes were operated to move construction material, most people under them had to look up worryingly, Nguyen Thi Nhung, who owns an eatery opposite the site, told Tuoi Tre.

“Whenever I look to the site, I wish for everything to be safe and sound,” Nhung said.

The same situation, but even more worryingly, was seen at many other construction sites for high-rises and tenements on Le Van Luong Street on the same day.         

Located next to the site for the HCCI Complex Building is a bus station that is always busy with hundreds of buses and thousands of people coming and going.

But two large cranes were seen that day jutting out from the site into the street carrying large concrete blocks, posing a threat to numerous people under them.

At another construction site for a multistory apartment building within the premises of the Golden Silk project in Dai Kim Ward, Hoang Mai District, Tuoi Tre reporters saw two crane towers operating above the heads of thousands of people traveling on busy streets below them.

A person who was taking his child to school through a street next to the site said, “I cannot imagine how terrible the consequences are when an accident is caused by such cranes. I don’t dare to even think about it.”

At 11:15 am on Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City, Tuoi Tre correspondents witnessed a long crane protruding from a construction site at 100 Ly Chinh Thang Street.

The scene of a crane collapse that killed a 32-year-old woman and her two children in the southern province of Dong Thap on May 5, 2015. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Almost everyone traveling on the street below the crane had to look up at it worryingly.

At another site on Hong Ha Street in Phu Nhuan District, the correspondents saw a huge crane carrying steel sheets over the heads of numerous workers and trucks below.

“Sometimes I wonder if the crane could cast the load out while it was moved back and forth and around the site carrying construction material,” a man named Hung said when sitting at a guard station of a residential quarter near the site.

Tran Quang Hien, a teacher at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, told Tuoi Tre that the collapse of a crane at the construction site of a railway line linking Nhon Street to the Hanoi railway station on Tuesday resulted from the poor quality of the crane, which had not been tested regularly and maintained properly.

Huynh Tan Dung, chief inspector of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, told Tuoi Tre that inspectors regularly inspect industrial safety, especially related to cranes at construction sites of high-rises.

The inspectorate has recently proposed that a criminal investigation be conducted for a serious crane-related accident.

Within this month, inspectors will inspect all construction sites of multistory buildings in the city, Dung said.

Last week, a crane suddenly collapsed at a construction site in the southern province of Dong Thap, killing a 32-year-old woman and her two children. The accident occurred on Road 842 in An Loc Ward of Hong Ngu Town on May 5 when the woman, Cao Tuong Van, was carrying her kids – a seven-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl – on a motorbike to their schools.

At that time, the driver of the crane truck was operating the equipment at an unfenced construction site for the Hong Ngu 2 Bridge, when the crane suddenly fell on the three victims. The provincial authorities said the accident might have brought about by the crane truck driver, who did not operate the machinery in accordance with standard procedures.

He was arrested after the accident.Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!