9. Willow Island
One of the worst construction accidents took place at Willow Island in West Virginia, in 1978 and the reason for it is again negligence and hasty construction. A contractor called Research-Cottrell was building a cooling tower at the Pleasants Power Sation at the same time when they were struggling with several other projects. This means that some shortcuts were taken, to save both money and time. The concrete was poured every day even though it takes longer than that for the concrete from the previous day to set, and the second tower reached the height of 166 feet. The partial collapse of the crane that was lifting the concrete caused both the concrete and the scaffolding bolted onto the tower to collapse killing all 51 workers. This horrible accident was a cause for new safety guidelines.
8. New York City Crane Collapse
Once again, negligence was the cause which led to many deaths just like in No.8 on our list of 10 worst construction accidents in history. One of the worst accidents in New York took place in 2008 during the construction of a 40-storey building on East 51st Street in New York City. Seven people were killed when a crane collapsed while workers were trying to raise a tower crane higher. The construction site is closed ever since and investigations showed that there were many safety violations that eventually led to the horrible accident.
