Editorial Comment: Elevators now a death trap

THE rise in incidents of elevator mishaps is a cause for concern and authorities should be alarmed at the loss of life emanating from faulty lifts. Most elevators in Zimbabwe are old and the care and maintenance of the lifts now leaves a lot to be desired.

Over the decade-long economic recession, the country lost a lot of skilled personnel, among them technicians working for elevator companies. During the same period, most buildings in major cities remained in a state of disrepair and crucial equipment such as elevators was neglected.

In Bulawayo, most buildings have decommissioned their lifts due to the expense associated with maintaining them. Those that have functional lifts can hardly maintain them and as a result they are constantly out of service.

Reports of people getting stuck in elevators have become commonplace and this is a recipe for disaster. On Friday, an employee of the National Railways of Zimbabwe and a technician from an elevator company who was trying to rescue her from a jammed elevator car, plunged to their deaths from the 8th floor of the parastatal’s headquarters at about 4PM. Elizabeth Mlangeni, who worked in the NRZ accounts department and Kevin Musina, a technician from Schindler Lifts, were found dead at the basement of the building on Saturday, 24 HOURS after the incident.

Police and the Bulawayo Fire Brigade battled for close to three hours to retrieve the bodies of the victims from the shaft and only managed to recover the bodies around 7PM. Trouble started when the elevator developed a fault and trapped the woman and a technician was called to attend to the scene and went in but never came back. Schindler then sent another technician on Saturday around 4PM to follow up on his colleague, only to discover that his colleague and the person he had come to rescue had died.

The incident came after one person died and three others were injured in March after an elevator at Chaminuka Building in Harare broke loose and plunged from the ninth to the fourth floor. The elevator was under routine maintenance and set for decommissioning.

In May, 14 people, mainly patients, were trapped in an elevator at Lancet House in Bulawayo following a power failure. Besides, these incidents, most elevators in the country are virtual death traps and Zimbabwe could record a major disaster if authorities don’t attend to the issue urgently. The National Social Security Authority has condemned most elevators in buildings in major cities and towns such as Harare and Bulawayo.

Due to the age of some of the elevators, technicians usually attend to them using a piecemeal approach just to keep them going. A lack of spare parts is also hampering efforts to service lifts. Elevators in Bulawayo’s tallest buildings at the NRZ and Kenilworth Towers at Ascot are old and dilapidated and the sooner they are replaced the better. We feel companies should prioritise the safety of their workforce by ensuring that the workplace environment is safe.

Faulty elevators are a death trap and authorities should not compromise on ensuring that they are in perfect working condition. We commiserate with the Mlangeni and Musina families on the painful death of their loved ones and urge the responsible authorities to put in place mechanisms that will ensure that the tragic incident does not recur. NSSA should also play an active role in enforcing the decommissioning of faulty elevators.

It is safer for workers to use staircases than risk their lives in faulty lifts. We also strongly feel the case of Mlangeni and Musina was not handled very well. The fact that a technician was dispatched to attend to the fault means that authorities at both Schindler and NRZ were aware of the predicament of the two but neglected to make a follow up promptly to ascertain whether the rescue mission had been a success.

To check on a delicate and risky job 24HOURS after the fact is gross negligence which is unacceptable and should be strongly condemned. The death of Mlangeni and Musina is regrettable and should have been avoided.

You Might Also Like

Comments