Accident on Timmendorfer Strand - A floating crane collides with a new pier on the Baltic Sea.
On Tuesday night, a 50x20-meter platform detached from its mooring and started clashing against the bridge structure in the rough waters of the Baltic Sea, getting wedged in the process. As a result, the crane on this floating structure became dangerously tilted, and at least one foundation of the brand new pier got damaged.
Firefighters couldn't do much due to the high waves
Around thirty firefighters were dispatched to the pier construction site at Timmendorfer Strand, but they couldn't do much. As Thorsten Plath, their head of operations, put it, "We quickly realized that we no longer had enough resources here and the danger to the emergency services was simply too great." A drone was even used to get a bird's-eye view of the situation, but humanity's drives and technology were no match for the raging waves.
The crane could fall anytime
While the floating platform was connected to two metal supports, one of them had now come undone, leading to damage to the buoyancy tanks. The platform's leaning position caused the safety loops to become unattached, causing the crane on the platform to slide dangerously close to the edge.
Plath further explained, "It's currently just being held by the safety hooks. If these break, the crane will fall." Various items, including wood planks, gas cylinders, and other objects, fell into the water due to the wind, and later had to be retrieved from the shore.
It is expected that authorities and structural engineers from Berlin will be inspecting the damage on Wednesday afternoon. The new 400-meter pier, which cost a hefty €12 million, was expected to open in September. Whether this deadline will be pushed back remains to be seen as the building authorities refused to comment on the matter.
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Source: symclub.org
