For the last 20 years, the political innovation of the Vietnam leaders has made the face of the whole country be changed. With the new policies of government, all of sectors of Vietnam economy have been developing strongly since beginning of decade 1990 and construction industrial sector may not be out of that movement, it has been booming to meet the requirements of economical development. In fact, construction industry achieved complete success in executing its mission.
However, in other side of success, the weakness has appeared: many accidents happened in recent years, hundreds construction workers died and injury, many construction parts and elements collapse. These accidents happened in many projects with different owners, contractors and consultants. Number of dead and injury people is very big, many times comparing 10 years ago.
The fatal accidents still happen everywhere in the whole country and many times more than decades before. Moreover, the happened accidents are not only influence to workers and projects but also to money and time. It normally takes much money to compensate the loss of workers and to repair the damages of the project and many other expenses. Besides, is takes much time-consuming for accident investigation and designing and repairing and sometime for legal questions.
Some people think they are just bad lucky of those projects due to the rate between the projects in which accident happened and total projects each year is not too high. That is worth for developing economy. Evenly they said that accidents are unavoidable. Is that true? Should we have the right to feel contempt the workers’ life when they serve for construction projects?
To have a better situation, with the supporting from studying of AIT dossier I hope that this material will give a hand to improve it analyzing every aspect of the problem in detail and then putting forward proper recommendation.
Mr. Hoang Don Dung made a study aimed to : (1) analyze the reasons of the recent constructing accidents in Vietnam which are related with the quality of temporary structure; (2) apply the regulation of Vietnam government and FIDIC contract to study these accidents; and (3) give out some recommendations to improve the safety and quality of temporary support structure in construction process.
His Conclusion
Studying occupational accidents happened in the past, we can recognize that there were two kinds of them: predictable or unpredictable. But the damages of these accidents were taken by human. A predictable occupational accident means avoidable if we do the right work. Most accidents of temporary construction structure in the past are predictable and avoidable but they have happened because a behavior of construction employees: subjective.
Many people at site often think that every temporary structure is just serving for executing a super-structure, it is not worth for long time. The executing weight loading on temporary structure is short-term load, too. They suppose that owners or customers won’t check it closely and in detail like other parts of project. In fact, some kinds of loading capacity may load on superstructure but not on temporary structure such as loads defined by probability, loads following seasons, earthquake, etc. This makes ideas of disregarding the temporary structure systems.
Combination with the conclusion in the end of Chapter 3 and my above opinion, I have a general conclusion for all happened occupational accidents caused by the quality of temporary structures at site:
In many projects, temporary structures have not been considering as superstructure in processes of designing and executing.
That means before implementation the temporary structure at site, it must be designed in detail attending the applied standard and codes. The design drawings and specification must be verified and accepted carefully by the Engineer/Supervisor as defined by Fidic terms or Vietnam Decree 209 to the superstructure.
Before implementation the temporary structure at site, its materials must be tested attending the applied standard and codes. Contractor may use old material but loading capacity must be ensured. Besides, using materials for the temporary structure must obey specification.
Contractor’s technical staff and owner’s supervisor must supervise and accept temporary structures carefully to achieve technical requirements defined by approved design and specification.
Recommendations
To solve the problems, the support of authority is indispensable. Government policies should have to regulate besides the regulations that were defined in Decree 209 (or the Fidic conditions of contract if applied) as follows:
a. Every temporary structure must be behaved as superstructure in designing and executing process.
b. Contractor’s employees have to be trained appropriately. They have to have proper profession certificates.
Abstract
Years by years, the persons who do their routine work at construction site still try to devote themselves to their jobs. Now and then there is information of a construction accident happened some where, they hear information and feel sorry for their coworkers. Then they can forget it at once because they think simply that accident was not their case; it does not relate to them.
Is that true? Don’t they relate completely and absolutely to any occupational accident though it happens out of their construction site? The answer is no because each of them is playing a roll in construction sector. Each person has his obligation of occupation. Somehow, by his opinions or activities he can help either to prevent accidents or reduce damage. He may not keep it for himself. Therefore those opinions must be written down.
This report writes about occupational accidents happened in Vietnam construction site in several recent years. The accidents happened by poor-quality and un-safety of the different temporary structure systems at the different site but basically the causation is human. They did not put all their consideration to the temporary structure because it’s non-permanent. In fact, they did design, manage, execute and check the temporary structure carelessly.
The author hopes that this report will give a more opinion to persons who do their routine work at construction site related to temporary structure systems. They will play very well their rolls at site as defined by government regulations and/or terms of Fidic contract.
1 comment:
This post is very informative. Construction health and safety plan is the basics of occupational safety and health in general. This book is useful for construction professionals who tend to introduce health and safety in their industry.
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