Jurong Shipyard fined S$230,000 for dangerous workplace that led to worker’s death

SINGAPORE — Jurong Shipyard Pte Ltd has been fined S$230,000 under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for a fatal accident in 2015, in which a worker died from injuries sustained after he was struck and caught between a gantry crane and a manifold, said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Monday (June 4).

The company had pleaded guilty to an offence of “failing to take reasonably practicable measures to ensure that its workplace was safe”, said the ministry in a press release.

On March 20, 2015, Mr Stephen Yeo Chye Mong, who was working as a safety coordinator and patrol man with Foo Ngan Marine – a subcontractor of Jurong Shipyard – was conducting safety checks near the manifolds along the track of a gantry crane.

Shortly after, a co-worker found Mr Yeo lying on the ground between a utility water supply manifold and the crane’s track. He was taken to the hospital, but succumbed to his injuries on the same day.

According to MOM, investigations showed a systemic failure in how Jurong Shipyard performed the lifting operation with the gantry crane. These “failures” made the workplace dangerous and resulted in the accident and, subsequently, in the death of Mr Yeo.

MOM noted that the company had failed to appoint a banksman to ensure that there was no one in the travelling path of the crane during its operation, and that there were insufficient warning signs to inform people to keep out of the lifting zone when operations were in progress.

In addition, it had not ensured sufficient passageway clearance between the crane track and the manifold, and that the clearance distance of 430mm was less than the recommended 750mm distance in the Singapore Standard SS 497:2011 Code of Practice.

“There were several safety lapses that were not addressed in this case,” said Mr Sebastian Tan, MOM’s Director of Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate.

“The width of the passageway for the gantry crane fell short of established safety standards as set out in the Code of Practice. Inadequacy in the risk assessment resulted in the lack of control measures to monitor and coordinate the safe movement of workers during lifting operations involving the gantry crane.

“The company could have taken simple measures such as the deployment of banksman or warning signs to prevent the accident but it did not. A worker unfortunately paid the price with his life.”