A worker was decapitated when he fell while working on bamboo scaffolding at an industrial building in Tsuen Wan yesterday. The accident occurred at the Texaco Centre in Texaco Road, the same building where a 27-year-old firefighter was killed in mid-2007. The 52-year-old worker, surnamed Cheung, had been removing water and drainage pipes on scaffolding erected on the outer wall of the building between the 13th and 23rd floors when the accident happened at 11.50am. It is still not known from which floor the worker fell but initial investigations showed the man had been severely injured before falling on to the fourth-floor podium of the building, as bloodstains were found on the wall. A safety belt was found on the body but it is not known if it had been properly attached. 'There are no witnesses to the case, and we are still trying to contact the family of the worker,' a police spokesman said. Labour officials visited the scene to investigate the accident. 'We have also contacted the employer of the worker, and under the law a report detailing the incident should be submitted by the company within seven days,' a spokeswoman for the Labour Department said. The department emphasised that employers and workers in the construction industry should pay attention to work safety. Last year, there were 22 fatal industrial accidents, 16 involving workers who plunged to their deaths. In 2008, eight workers fell to their deaths, and the total number of fatal industrial accidents was 24. Chan Kam-hong, head of the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims, said the incident showed people should raise their safety awareness. 'I hope this incident will be the last one, but the chances are so slim,' Chan said. He added that while safety belts were often worn by workers, in most construction work they could not be anchored properly because workers were not allowed to drill the anchors into the walls of buildings. Firefighter Wong Ka-hei was killed in May 2007 while fighting a blaze at the same building. Nine people, including six of his colleagues, were injured in the fire. Wong died while attempting to put out a blaze on the sixth floor of the electroplating factory building. At the time, the 23-storey building was named the QPL Industrial Building, but the name was later changed to the Texaco Centre.
