SINGAPORE: A construction company has been fined S$160,000 over a workplace accident that killed one worker near the Changi MRT depot in December 2020.
Lum Chang Building Contractors failed to take the necessary measures to ensure the safety of employees from BLT Geoworks, which it had engaged to do works around Tanah Merah MRT station.
The company was convicted on Dec 17, 2024, of a charge under the Workplace Safety and Health Act.
In the accident on Dec 15, 2020, Bangladeshi worker Shajahan Mohammad, 29, died of multiple injuries after part of a sheet pile struck him at a Land Transport Authority (LTA) construction site beside the Changi MRT depot.
Sheet piles, usually made of steel, timber or concrete, are used in construction to help retain soil and provide excavation support. They can either be permanent or temporary structures.
In December 2020, LTA said: “During the extraction of sheet piles, the welding joint holding two sheet piles together broke, causing part of the sheet pile to fall on a worker. The worker was pronounced dead at the scene.”
The Ministry of Transport said in March 2024 that Lum Chang Building Contractors has two projects with LTA – a statutory board under the ministry.
One of the contracts, awarded in October 2016, involved works over existing and new viaducts near the junction of Upper Changi Road East and Koh Sek Lim Road.
On or around Dec 5, 2017, Lum Chang Building Contractors engaged BLT Geoworks to install and extract sheet piles. Work then started in May 2018.
Shajahan was a member of the extraction team. Among other things, he was tasked to monitor the extraction process, ensuring that sheet piles were steady and upright while they were being extracted.
Shortly before the tragedy on Dec 15, 2020, Shajahan was standing about 3m away from an extraction point.
The upper portion of a sheet pile then broke off at a spliced joint immediately after it was extracted from the ground, and it struck Shajahan’s back, causing him to fall.
The police were alerted about the accident at around 10am, and paramedics pronounced him dead about an hour later.
Said prosecutors from the Ministry of Manpower: “Both Lum Chang’s own set of safety documents as well as BLT’s safety documents, which were reviewed by Lum Chang, failed to identify and address the foreseeable hazard of a failure in the spliced joint... Consequently, no risk control measures were identified and then implemented on-site to specifically address the said hazard.”
For committing the offence, Lum Chang Building Contractors could have been fined up to $500,000. - The Straits Times/ANN
