SEATTLE – A construction crane fell from a building on Google's new Seattle campus during a gale-blowing storm on one of the busiest streets in the city. killed four people.

One woman and three men were dead when the firefighters arrived on Saturday afternoon, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said. Two of the dead were ironworkers who were inside the crane, while the other two were people who were inside a car, the spokesman said. fire department, Lance Garland.

A 25-year-old mother and her 4-month-old daughter were in a car that was broken by the passenger-side crane, and both managed to escape with only minor injuries, said the Seattle Mayor. , Jenny Durkan, speaking of a miracle. . They were taken with a 28-year-old man to Harborview Medical Center. A fourth person was also injured and treated on the scene.

The crane collapsed near the often congested intersection of Mercer and Fairview Avenue, just north of downtown, in the South Lake Union neighborhood shortly before 3:30 pm, Scoggins said.

The deadly collapse will not fail to spark a particular interest in the safety of the dozens of cranes that dot the city's aerial landscape. With Amazon, Google and other technology companies hiring more in Seattle, the city has more cranes for office towers and apartment buildings than anywhere else in the United States. In January, there were about 60 construction cranes in Seattle.

Durkan said the city had a good track record in crane safety but officials would conduct a review. "It's a horrible day in Seattle where something like this is happening. But this is a time when we gather because Seattle is a city that is mobilized against each other, "she said.

Officials do not yet know the cause of the collapse. Police and the Ministry of Labor and State Industry were investigating what, according to Durkan, could take months.

Daren Konopaski, commercial director of Local 302 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, who represents the heavy equipment operators, told the Seattle Times that he knew the crane was in the process to be dismantled when strong winds were blowing in the area.

"We do not know, but that's what seems to have happened here," he said. "We are trying to get information."

Durkan confirmed that people were actively working over the building on Saturday, but she did not say whether the crane was being dismantled.

A series of showers moved over Seattle around the time the crane fell, the National Meteorological Service announced. An observation station located near Lake Union showed that the winds were blowing up to 23 mph at 15:28, roughly at the time of the fall of the crane.

"It was terrifying," Esther Nelson, a biotechnology researcher working in a nearby building, told the Times.

"The wind was blowing very hard," she said, adding that the crane seemed to break in two. "Half was flying sideways on the building," she said. "The other half fell on the street, crossing both lanes of traffic."

The office building where the crane fell was severely damaged and many of its windows were broken.

A spokesman for Google said in a statement that the company was sad to learn of the accident and that she was in touch with Vulcan, the real estate company that runs the site and works with them. authorities.

Harborview spokeswoman Susan Gregg said Saturday night that the mother and baby had been released, while the injured man was in satisfactory condition.

The King County Medical Examiner's Office has announced that it will not release the names of people who died before Monday.

A crane collapsed in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, in 2006, damaging three neighboring buildings and a Microsoft lawyer sitting in his living room. The Ministry of Labor and State Industries cited two companies for workplace safety violations after an investigation revealed a flawed design of the crane base.

"Trudi and I join with all Washingtonians in expressing our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the four people who died in the tragic accident this afternoon," said the governor of the state. Washington, Jay Inslee, in a statement. Inslee also said that he hoped for a quick and complete recovery of the injured, thanked the first responders and urged the population to stay away from the accident site.

—

Geranios reported from Spokane, Washington.

Read or share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/28/seattle-crane-fall/3607578002/