NEWS: Friday May 30, 2008

In New York city another crane has collapsed into a pile of rubble. The building is located on East 91st Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The crane accident killed two people and emergency workers are searching for more possible victims. The crane operator was killed in the collapse.

The cab of the crane smashed into the top floor of the building, about 20 stories up, and cascaded down the north facade, knocking off balconies and leaving a swath of pockmarks down to a Duane Reade drug store, which sits on the building’s ground floor.

The accident occurred just two months after a tower crane collapsed on East 51st Street between Second and First Avenues, killing seven people and prompting an extensive review of the safety of the city’s cranes.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who appeared Friday morning in a previously scheduled radio interview, said the accident “is just unacceptable and we’ve got to figure out what happened here.”

“We’re not going to tolerate any rate of accidents any higher than it has to be,” the mayor said, though he did not appear to have been fully briefed on the details of this morning’s accident. “The construction industry obviously and real estate developers, they don’t want you to shut it down. But the bottom line is No. 1 is public safety.”

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