Crane crashes onto Liverpool city centre flats




CRANE has crashed into an apartment building in the city centre.
At 11.50am this morning an emergency call was made to the fire brigade of reports of a crane crashing into flats on Tabley Street behind Park Lane. The image above, taken by FACT Liverpool, shows the crane across the building's roof.

Police fire and ambulance crews are currently in attendance.




THE POST



MORE SOON

I'm close by it. Got pics from my CCTV . Ambulance just went past at 13:28 with a police escort. I heard it crash down as I'm only 3/400 metres away. The cab is wresting ontop of the apartments.

I did try update here on wiki but my 3G wasn't working

cool keep us updated bud.

A 200FT crane crashed through the roof of a city centre apartment block today sparking a massive search and rescue operation.

The Royal was put on standby amid fears of casualties.

The man driving the 100 tonne crane was thrown from the cab on impact. He is in a serious condition in hospital.

It is understood a number of residents were initially trapped inside the apartment block.

The crash happened at 12.05pm in Tabley Street, behind Park Lane, on the outskirts of the city centre.

Police, fire and ambulance crews were called to the scene.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue service described it as a "major incident".

A huge cordon was thrown around the scene.

Eyewitness Maria Toolan, 39, who lives in the apartment block opposite, said: "I heard a horrendous noise and ran to the balcony. I watched in horror as a massive red crane tumbled into the apartment block.

"I was in complete shock as all I could think of is what if it had fallen the other way and landed on me.

"I would surely have died as I am in the penthouse."

Sarah Banfield, 21, lives on the fourth floor of the apartment building and was in her bedroom at the moment the crane crashed with her boyfriend.

She said: "We were just standing there and the floor started shaking. My first thought was that it must have been a massive earthquake.

"I went out onto the balcony and as I could see was a cloud of dust and I hear a girl crying.

"I then grabbed by shoes and bag and we ran out of the door. There was water everywhere as the pipes had all burst.

"We opened the door to the emergency exit and couldn’t see the floor because of all the debris.

"We made our way down three flights of stairs before realising that the door at the bottom was blocked.

"At this point I started to panic as I really didn’t want to go back up.

"We then heard someone above us and we just started screaming "help, help we’re across here".

"A workman came and helped us. He showed us where to tread and he was holding my hand. He got us out of there."

Sarah is still clearly in shock and was wrapped in an aluminium foil blanket. She added: "I am just grateful to have escaped."

James Barry operations commander at the scene said that it was lucky the incident happened when it did as most people were out of their homes and at work.

He said: "In the process of collapsing across the building the crane damaged the integral stair case which has created issues.

"We are carrying out a systematic knocking on all floors to check that there is no one left in the building. There are stability issues with the building as the five tonne counter weight has crashed through the building."

Sniffer dogs are currently checking debris to make sure that no one is trapped in the building.

A spokeswoman for North West Regional Ambulance Service said ambulances had been sent out to the scene and staff at Royal Liverpool Hospital are on standby.

She said: "We were called at 12.04pm. A crane has gone into a block of flats. We are still at the scene so we haven’t got much information.

"We have got six vehicles there but not all are emergency ambulances, two are ambulances, there’s a rapid response vehicle and a high dependency unit. There are also two managers at the scene in their vehicles.

"We’ve got the Royal on standby, just in case."

Thom Shannon, a director of Glow New Media in nearby Gostin's Building, said: "The crane has fallen over onto the north side of the apartment building. It's buckled over onto the top of the building.

"We looked out of the window here and saw a strange red shape on the building.

"The crane has ripped through the top of the building."

A builder working on the Bowmer and Kirkland site said: "We heard a massive rumble which sounded like a plane taking off or a clap of thunder and we all turned round and watched as the crane fell into the building."

THE POST

Tower crane crash, I was on site a few weeks ago
photographs below by pete Carr

photographs pete Carr

HSE were throwing a wobbler last year about the number of cranes having an unauthorised break, hopefully they will really kick *ss this time, we can't have this hapening every five minutes. One of our Wiki members lives very close to that, I hit the panic button when I first saw where it was!!!

Ahh - we collided - brilliant pictures purfek

photograph by Craig Magee

my visit a few weeks earlier above

photograph I took in May

Brilliant!! pics purfek


thanks for Sharing

[img]http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/15933864.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0ZRYP5X5F6FSMBCCSE82&Expires=1246894608&Signature=uYX8OV%2BWO0Mpz4s%2B%2BE2B1IbK9Sk%3D[/img]
taken from twiter website
not sure who took this

wonderful pics thanks

[youtube]jIC0eBmL3Os[/youtube]

[youtube]FsrmcxJ9jLQ[/youtube]

Here's a few pics from work today.

It really did sound like thunder when it fell.









My Poor bike parked at work, the crane in the background lol

LMAO!!!



Great pics bud thanks


hope the man in the cab is ok

haha ta, note all the scratch marks in my parking space off my bike

Before and after!

Looking at these pictures, the front (long) jib of the crane has swung right over the top when the crane fell backwards. I wonder if the rope broke and catapulted it backwards - funny it falling backwards.

the best i got mate!

its not that type of crane, I think its called a tower crane

???

picture taken by Martin of skyscrapercity

A Wolffkran tower crane has collapsed near Liverpool city centre in the UK.


http://www.cranestodaymagazine.com/index.asp?navcode=702

http://www.wolffkran.de/modules/mod_medien/files/m484.pdf

Good find purfek, I put my engineers anorak on and read quite a lot of that - interesting, some big forces at play sometimes!

One of my friends lives in them - all he has is the clothes on his back, his mobile and ipod and a tesco bag with some snacks in it. The HSE have been in a meeting with the Police since 10am apparently.

The stairs on his half of the building have gone and they are talking about condemning the building. He's not lived in there long bless him.

all that for nothing.

developers investigate second crane



URGENT checks were being carried out today on a second crane at the site of yesterday’s drama.

A tower crane buckled and crashed into the apartment blocks at 24 and 26 Cornhill, in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, late yesterday morning.

The crane driver flung from his cab onto the five-storey building suffered head, leg and chest injuries. He is still being treated at the Royal Liverpool Hospital where he is understood to be in a stable condition.

A spokesman for developers Bowmer & Kirkland, whose Crane 2a collapsed yesterday, said: “As a precaution Tower Crane 1 is being examined by an independent engineer, to ensure it remains in a safe condition.”

Meanwhile search and rescue teams are scouring the rubble beneath the crushed buildings to double check no one is trapped after the crane’s five tonne counter balance smashed its way to the sub-basement.

Gold commander and the fire service’s area manager Dan Stephens said his teams would continue to comb the site as a precaution until he was sure everyone is accounted for.

He said because flats in the Baltic Triangle are privately-owned there was no way of knowing who was inside.

Asked how long the floor-by-floor search could take, Mr Stephens told the ECHO: “It’s impossible to tell given the number of floors and given the fact that they are privately owned.

“The fire service operation will continue until we are satisfied that there are no persons trapped.

“The concerns we have are that there are people under the rubble.”

More than 20 people spent last night in hotels or with friends after being evacuated from their homes.

Now blocks 31 and 33 are also being emptied on the advice of Honeybourne Kenny chartered surveyors.

Residents have a 5pm evacuation deadline as emergency crews fear the entire development could be unsafe.

A Health and Safety Executive investigation has been launched into yesterday’s incident – the twelfth involving cranes in three years.

THE ECHO

Liverpool Crane Incidents

Over the past three years there have been at least 11 crane incidents on Merseyside


Liverpool Crane Danger

Crane recovery work commences









pictures by Joe Neary of Yo Liverpool

Liverpool crane-hit block 'to be demolished'



ONE OF the apartment blocks a 200ft crane smashed into will be torn down, officials confirmed today.
An internal staircase crucial to the building’s structure was wiped out when 55 tonnes of concrete blocks punched their way from the roof to the basement of the building.

Occupants of the plush Baltic triangle flats are being told they will be out of their homes for at least another nine months.

In that time the 30-plus apartment block will be partly demolished and could be re-built.

The crane buckled and crashed into blocks 24 and 26 Cornhill in Chandlers Wharf last Monday.

The ECHO has also spoken to Liverpool lawyers who say compensation claims are being lodged by occupants of the flats.

They plan to claim damages for the emotional trauma suffered by the mayhem and its aftermath.

Engineer Steve White, who works with the city’s building control team, described block 24 as being in a “horrific condition”.

He added: “You would have to be made to go into 24 now. I can be realistically sure that 24 will have to be deconstructed.”

It is too risky to send builders inside to recover the concrete blocks – which were the crane’s counter-balance – and shore up the structure without taking the building apart, Mr White said.

Asked how long the work would take with “perfect conditions”, he estimated six to eight weeks to rip the block down and another six to seven months to rebuild it again – if it is to be re-built.

It is hoped block 26 will survive despite bearing the weight of the crane for almost a week.

THE ECHO