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Serious accident in Hamburg: emergency vehicles in HafenCity

Photo: Bodo Marks / picture alliance / dpa

On Monday morning, the cranes over the shell of the building in Hamburg's HafenCity are at a standstill. Men in yellow vests and white helmets stand together in small groups and talk about the serious accident that occurred here around 9:10 a.m.

At least three construction workers were killed when scaffolding collapsed over several floors. The craftsmen fell into the depths, some are still missing. Initially, there had been talk of five deaths. "We can confirm four deaths," a fire department spokeswoman told SPIEGEL this morning. This number has now been corrected to three. It is unclear how many people are injured. A seriously injured person was taken to a hospital, the spokeswoman said.

Most of the men on the ground have perplexed faces. "How could this happen?" asks one who speaks some English, "it's terrible."

This morning, a police car is parked in front of the cordoned-off area, as well as two ambulances with blue lights on. He didn't see anything himself, says one of the people whose vest says "Security." Actually, the major construction site of the future Überseequartier is considered safe, he says.

Number of affected workers unclear

60 rescue workers were deployed on Chicagostraße. According to the fire department, the scaffolding belonged to an elevator shaft about eight storeys high. It was initially unclear how many workers were on the scaffolding at the time of the collapse. The large construction site has been cleared, about 700 construction workers are employed there. Emergency chaplains and eyewitnesses are currently on site to care for the emergency services.

Hamburg's largest construction site

The Überseequartier is one of the largest construction sites in the Hanseatic city. On the 14-hectare site, shops, restaurants, entertainment, offices, a cruise terminal, an underground bus station, hotels with around 1150 rooms and more than 1000 apartments are being built. The northern part has already been completed since 2019, and work is underway on the southern part. According to the information, the real estate company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is investing more than one billion euros in the total of around 260,000 square meters of above-ground gross floor area.

As recently as 2 September, four workers were injured, some of them life-threatening, in a similar accident at a construction site on Hamburg's Elbe bridges - not far from HafenCity. Scaffolding buckled and dragged the workers about five meters into the depths. Three construction workers, aged 27, 35 and 53, were seriously injured. A 21-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries.

On April 6, 2020, two construction workers were seriously injured by falling components on a construction site on Zweibrückenstraße in HafenCity. A package of 20 to 30 formwork boards, which had been moved by a crane, had been torn off the hook.

gud/ala/dpa