Relatives of the victims of an accident where a crane collapsed after its cabin and base snapped during a trial run, react at a hospital in Visakhapatnam on August 1, 2020. / AFP / STR
HYDERABAD, India - A huge crane collapsed during load testing at a government-run shipyard in southern India on Saturday, killing at least 11 workers, a district administrator said.
Television footage showed the new crane hitting the ground with full force and breaking into pieces at the Hindustan Shipyard in Vishakhapatnam, a port city in Andhra Pradesh state.
Vinay Chand, a district government administrator, said most of the victims were contract laborers. Five workers were hospitalized with injuries, he said, adding that the crane collapsed on workers who were working on it or standing nearby
The cause of the accident is being investigated, Chand said.
Vishakhapatnam is 620 kilometers (385 miles) east of Hyderabad, the state capital.
In another accident in the port city in May, a gas leak in a South Korean-owned chemical factory killed 12 people and sickened more than 1,000.
