【明報專訊】The Labour Department has completed an investigation regarding the tower crane collapse that caused multiple innocent deaths at a Hong Kong Housing Society construction site on Anderson Road. A total of 67 prosecutions were initiated against the contractor, subcontractors and a number of individuals, involving at least seven companies, suggesting serious contraventions. According to an expert investigation, from the approval to the construction of the tower crane involved, there were problems in all procedures, showing how slipshod the engineering was. The incident involved multiple instances of dereliction of duty. The responsibility of the Housing Society and the government in supervising the construction equally warrants concern. The authorities must initiate prosecutions for criminal liability strictly and make investigation reports public to prevent the spread of a sloppy culture and unlawful irregularities in the industry.
Last September, a tower crane collapsed suddenly at a Housing Society building site on Anderson Road in Sau Mau Ping. It fell onto the temporary container offices underneath it, resulting in three deaths and six injuries. In the aftermath, the police were responsible for investigating the criminal liabilities of relevant parties for negligence, while the Labour Department was in charge of launching an industrial accident investigation. After a half-year probe, the Labour Department announced a few days ago that it has completed the investigation. The report by independent experts shows that there were two main causes of the accident. The first was the faulty design of the crane foundation. Its allowable bearing stress was miscalculated, resulting in its carrying the wrong loads. The second was "flaws" in the welding work of the foundation, which made welded joints defective, thus affecting its bearing capacity.
Having consulted the Department of Justice, the Labour Department decided to initiate a total of 67 prosecutions against the contractor, subcontractors and individual responsible parties. However, the names of the defendants and the specific charges faced by each of the accused have not been disclosed. The details of the case may not be known until the court convenes.
Obviously, the crane collapse accident was not caused by the negligence or mistakes of simply one or two people. According to a local structural engineer, before a tower crane is erected on a construction site, if it is to be connected to a foundation by welding, the contractor's structural engineer has to calculate the thickness of the welding first and draw up plans for that. It should then be reviewed by the consultant firm's on-site engineer. Only after approval should the plans be handed over to frontline workers for execution. Sometimes, the contract may even specify that they have to seek the opinion of one more independent engineer as secondary gatekeeping. The Labour Department also has authorised agents to examine the work. Furthermore, after the workers have finished the weld, someone should also double-check to ensure that the welded joint is "sturdy".
However, the system of "multiple gatekeeping" clearly failed to function in the incident. There are two possible reasons. One is that the relevant duty holders and gatekeepers had not done their job well and took slapdash approaches. Another is that they had not followed the supposed procedures at all. One may not even rule out the possibility that somebody, in order to cover up the truth, resorted to fraud and deception, which leads to issues of corruption. Ignoring building safety is like acting with utter disregard for human life. The laws invoked by the Labour Department regarding the case carry the highest penalty of only $500,000 in fine and half a year in jail. This inevitably raises concern about whether the highest penalty can reflect the seriousness of a tragedy which claimed three lives and caused six injuries.
In theory, the authorities send agents to construction sites regularly for independent safety audits and blitz inspections. However, they usually resort to looking through documents and exercising "oversight on paper". Slack government supervision can easily breed actions such as pretending to obey the rules and participating in fraud. In the coming 10 years, Hong Kong will launch multiple megaprojects. A short-staffed construction industry will make haste to keep projects on schedule. If the government fails to find ways to strengthen regulations, it may foment chaos of all kinds.
明報社評2023.03.08：塌天秤調查揭亂象 莫讓苟且文化蔓延
安達臣道房協地盤天秤倒塌多人枉死，勞工處完成調查，向承建商、分判商及個別人等，提出合共67項檢控，涉及最少7間公司，反映違規嚴重；專家調查顯示，出事天秤由審批到施工都有問題，反映工程馬虎；事件涉及多重失職失責，房協和政府的監管責任，同樣惹人關注。當局必須從嚴追究刑責、公開調查報告，嚴防馬虎苟且文化及不法亂象在業界蔓延。
去年9月，秀茂坪安達臣道房協建築地盤有天秤突然塌下，擊中下方的臨時貨櫃辦公室，導致3死6傷。事後警方負責調查人為疏忽刑事責任，勞工處則進行工業意外調查。半年過去，勞工處日前宣布完成調查，獨立專家報告顯示，意外主因有二，一是天秤基座設計有誤，計算可承受應力出錯，引致基座負載有問題；二是基座焊接工藝有「瑕疵」，令焊接位存在缺陷，影響了承受力。
勞工處徵詢律政司意見後，決定向承建商、分判商及個別持責者，合共提出共67項檢控，惟未有公開被告名稱及各自涉及的罪名，具體案情可能要等到開庭才得知。
塌天秤事故明顯不止是一兩個人疏忽失誤所致。根據本地結構工程師說法，工地架設天秤，若以焊接方式連接基座，承建商結構工程師需要先計算所需焊接厚度，並繪製圖則，再由顧問公司的駐工地工程師覆檢，經審批才會交由前線工人執行，有時合約還會訂明另覓多一名獨立工程師作第二重把關，勞工處亦有委託人做檢驗；另外，工人完成焊接後，亦會有人覆檢，確保焊接位「實淨」。
可是在事故中，「重重把關」機制明顯沒有發揮作用。這存在兩個可能，一是相關責任人和把關者都沒有做好本分，馬馬虎虎得過且過；二是根本沒按應有程序辦事，甚至不排除有人為了掩飾真相，弄虛作假，出現腐敗問題。忽略建築安全，形同草菅人命。勞工處就案件所引用的法例，最高僅可判罰50萬元和判監半年，是否足以反映慘劇釀成3死6傷的嚴重性，難免惹人關注。
理論上，當局會定期派人到地盤獨立安全稽查及突擊巡查，然而更多時候還是依靠看文件「紙上監管」。政府監管不到位，陽奉陰違、弄虛作假等情况，自然容易出現。未來10年，本港將有多項大型工程上馬，建造業人手不足，工程又要趕進度，政府若不設法加強監管，各種亂象實有可能變本加厲。
■Glossary
生字
contravention : the fact of doing sth that is not allowed by a law or rule
slipshod : done without care; doing things without care
foment : to create trouble or violence or make it worse