Out and About in Dubai

Yesterday, a crane collapsed in midtown Manhattan by East 51st street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. One block from where I used to work and where a lot of my close friends still work. I’m glad none of them were hurt.

The area has been undergoing a lot of construction in the last few years as new residential buildings are being erected. The New York Times reports:

At least four people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured, and damage was expected to run into the millions of dollars in what the authorities called one of the city’s worst accidents — a calamity that turned a neighborhood near the United Nations into a zone of panic, pulverized buildings, wailing sirens, evacuations, searches in the rubble and covered bodies in the streets.

Also according to The Times, the last major crane collapse in NYC was almost nine years ago in September of 1999.

In Dubai, it is often reported that the city has 25 to 30 percent of the world’s cranes. Indeed, everywhere you look, there is major construction going on and cranes, cranes, cranes everywhere. In 2007, according to CraneAccidents.com, there were 347 crane accidents and 176 deaths that were reported to the website. Theoretically, for the year 2007, Dubai could have 87 to 104 of the world’s crane accidents based on the percentage of cranes that are here.

In searching Google, there are a few reports of crane accidents in Dubai, and ironically, a recent accident occurred on January 30, 2008 just yards from a Middle East Cranes Conference.

Scariest of all cranes for me, are the ones looming above the Burj Dubai - currently the tallest building in the world at 604.9 m (1,985 ft), with 159 completed floors. It surpassed the height of the Tapei 101 building on July 21, 2007 but the Taipei building is still “officially” the tallest building until the Burj Dubai is completed. The Burj is estimated to be completed by September 2009 and the projected final height is still being kept a secret but is estimated at 818 m (2,684 ft).

From the bottom up, you can see that the building tapers inwards and then there are these 2 huge cranes that look like they are precariously perched on top. Imagine the people who have to work all the way up there!

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