Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Avoiding Site Accidents!

“When you take in consideration all the possible chances of any mishap happening at the site & make safety arrangements to avoid it accordingly in the right way & yet something bad happens & someone loses his or her life, that is what I call an accident”… Me.

Friends, the above quote is not actually a quote but it’s sharing a thought process as you can easily imagine it’s about site accidents & to avoid them or to learn from them! And I just thought of these words in a brainstorming session of our fact-finding committee formed to analyze reasons for a recent accident at one site in Pune. Adhering to the outcome of this sharing as here will try to use this case study building a system which will be workable & will help to reduce ( I am not saying stop) the accidents at the sites!

As first & foremost we must understand that civil Eng works are still carried out in our country mainly by humans as labor force is cheaper in this country (unfortunately, so is life too) & that too most of them are in this trade just because they have nothing else to do & finds it easier for their survival & not by choice! So, to train them is a big challenge as barring a few institutes there are not many schools of colleges which will give formal training of these trades such as tiling, masonry, plumbing, carpentry, or steel reinforcement & many such. This makes educating these laborers on the safety front more tough as most of them are illiterate & are used to doing the work in their traditional way which doesn’t include safety as training! Then comes the supervisory part, being a civil Eng by myself, I vouch till lately, safety wasn’t a subject which they teach you in Eng colleges in depth (rather even on surface too) & no wonder in construction industry (not just real estate) a good civil engineer also not that good in maintaining safety at site is a fact! The main reason behind most accidents at construction projects is, safety was never considered as a quality aspect of any structure’s building process right from teaching civil engineering & this aspect we must keep in mind in achieving safety at sites!

For the contractors (I am referring to all trades) just to get a contract if you are missing safety from your expenditure then you are making a big mistake as one accident can wipe not just your profit from that work but all your earnings, please keep this thing in mind while quoting for any contract. As well do check & sign term sheet or tender or work order with your sub-contractors with proper safety clauses & follow them.

Lastly for the owner or builder (I am restricting to real estate) , your neck is the first in the line when any accident happens & more than this, I don’t want to comment anything about the developer's approach towards safety at the site!

Coming back to the subject, let's first list the probable stages of a construction site where accidents can happen & then only, we can make arrangements to avoid them, right?

1.While you buy the plot

Many times we think how an empty plot can cause harm but that depends on geography, topography as well geology of that plot. Study carefully, all these aspects of the plot, make documentation of the condition of the plot while you buy it even before building a compound wall as well what activities are happening in the neighborhood of the plot as all these things matter. Such as natural water source of path from or near by your plot, slopes where landslides can happen or water-logged areas or deeps as all these things can be the reason of accident even when the plot is empty & you make labor camps here.

2.Labour Camps

Most neglected & susceptible location for accident, right from its location to arrangement to material used for making it everything matters.

3.Boundary Walls

Making a boundary wall can be a costly affair depending on plot size as well soil strata but if you try to save on money in building the boundary wall it can cost you a fortune, so do it only under structural consultants advice as even if you spend money in making it fancy it must be durable also!

4. Excavation for foundation or basement

Maximum accidents happen during this phase & when we have to build thirty / forty storied buildings we need to dig deep in earth also & there is where the problem starts. Utmost care must be taken when you excavate your plot as it's not just safety or people working but adjoing properties also needs to be taken care in while you dig deep into your plot. At the same time dewatering is there if groundwater is high. Main issue is, most of western Maharashtra has black cotton soil as top earth cover & is very tricky in physical behavior; when it comes in contact with water it shrinks & expands when it gets dried, thus it physically flows, causing maximum accidents! As well flooding in rains also can be a matter of concern when you dig. And in case of redevelopment projects there is demolishing of existing structures or even the time of some bungalow also, these too are the stages of work where utmost care needed to be taken to avoid accidents.

5.RCC / Masonry/ Plaster

Here two fronts one must check, one is accidents during shuttering for slab work or casting & second is accidents while scaffolding work for masonry & plaster from outside. And as the structure goes up high then the service ducts openings at every slab level also are danger spots such as lift ducts, electric main’s duct & many such.

6.Facade & Elevation Works

With the craze of fancy elevations as well as glazing for commercial buildings, we have to make separate treatments to the entire height from outside & is a risky affair when a building is multistoried. This also needs to be taken in consideration while painting from outside as a few years back in Mumbai, entire scaffolding collapsed while painting from outside claiming nearly fifteen plus lives of the painters which were working on that scaffolding.

7.Finishing Items

Though as by this stage most of the activities are complete yet fire & electric short-circuit are two main causes which can be the reason of accidents in such things, such as tiling or interiors of the lobbies etc. As well falling down due to slippery floor surfaces also is one cause of the accident in the finishing stages. Even waterproofing of water tanks overhead or underground are risky affairs.

8.Site Equipments & Services

Construction equipment such as tower cranes, work-lifts are main reasons in construction stage accidents which must be kept under good & routine maintenance. As well in the finishing stage, building’s lifts, escalators , generators , transformers & such types of services need to be looked after carefully to avoid accidents. Even the movable machinery such as fork-lifts or Dumpers or water tankers or concrete mixers must be allowed to operate to only the trained hands to avoid accidents because of their wrong movements.

9.Children of Site Labor’s

Most vulnerable to accidents as usually they tend to follow their parents even to work areas.

10.Surrounding Neighborhood

These are more at risk because they are not site familiar & it’s us who must think for their safety. As well, clients & outsiders visiting the site also needed to be looked after from a safety angle.

Now, we can make pointwise do’s & don’ts to ensure safety at all above stages yet as I said at start there can be something all together different than these & cause a mishap but that will be an accident & next time we must cover that possibility also in our safety measures, that is learning from the accident!

Last but least, the governing public bodies as well investigation agencies like Police also must have a proper system to handle a site accident & rather than reacting to the incident & media pressure & taking face saving actions, must take a realistic & practical stand!

Sanjay Deshpande

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

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https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

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https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

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