October 15 marked the 54th anniversary of Australia’s worst construction disaster, the collapse the West Gate Bridge, which took the lives of 35 workers.
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Two years into the construction of the West Gate Bridge a 120m span of the half-built bridge (an estimated 2000 tonnes of concrete and steel) buckled and crashed to the ground. Nearby houses were spattered with flying mud and buildings hundreds of metres away shook. Some of the 35 workers who died that day were on their lunch break in the workers’ huts beneath the bridge, others were working on top and inside the bridge when it fell.
A Royal Commission into the collapse was scathing of the design and methods employed by John Holland and World Services, the two companies building the bridge.
A ceremony was held on Tuesday this week to mark the 54th anniversary, with speakers sharing their insights and reflections. Many attendees have a personal connection to the disaster, including several who worked on the bridge from 1968 to 1978, and many with relatives amongst the dead or injured, or who worked tirelessly on the rescue and recovery efforts.
Read more - https://www.ohsrep.org.au/west_gate_bridge_54th_anniversary
1970 West Gate Bridge Disaster | National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (nfsa.gov.au)
