Accident in HafenCity
Hamburg: Four dead – scaffolding falls into elevator shaft
According to the fire department, 60 rescue workers are on duty at the scene of the accident in HafenCity. photo
© Steven Hutchings/dpa
Dramatic accident: Four people died on a construction site in Hafencity. Scaffolding collapsed in an elevator shaft, taking five construction workers with it. Only one survived.
The fire department has counted the number of deaths in the collapse of scaffolding in Hamburg Hafencity revised upwards to four. A fire department spokesman said another death was discovered on Monday afternoon while the scaffolding poles were being removed.
Initially, three dead and one construction worker with life-threatening injuries were found. Nobody will be missed anymore.
According to previous findings, the scaffolding erected in an elevator shaft collapsed on the eighth floor in the morning for reasons that are still unclear and rushed into the depths. The rubble then piled up from the basement to the second floor.
Accident site: a giant Mikado
According to the fire department, the accident scene looked like a giant Mikado. The scaffolding poles were tilted all over the place in the shaft and had to be secured and recovered individually – which is why the fire department initially couldn’t get to the victims for hours. By early afternoon only two bodies had been recovered.
A total of around 150 rescue workers were on duty, including height rescuers and a technical platoon from the volunteer fire department. According to information, around 700 people were working on the construction site at the time of the accident. The construction site was closed after the accident.
Emergency pastors were called in to look after the emergency services and eyewitnesses. A crisis intervention team was also deployed. Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) expressed his condolences to the victims’ families. “My condolences and sincere condolences go out to all the relatives of the victims,” he wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
The Überseequartier is part of the Hafencity, which is considered Europe’s largest inner-city urban development project. A large shopping center with many shops, restaurants, entertainment, offices, a cruise terminal, hotels and more than 1000 apartments is being built on the 14 hectare site on the Elbe. The northern part has been completed since 2019, and work is ongoing in the southern part.