Identification and Comparison of Accidents on Dam and Highway Construction Sites

Abstract

With the strong economic situation in India to promote the vigorous development of the construction industry, the frequency and severity of future accidents at construction sites will inevitably increase. Construction sites are dangerous places that can cause worker injuries/ illness/death. These may be due to electrocution, falling from high places, injuries caused by tools, equipment, and machinery; injuries caused by moving the construction vehicle, manual operations and diseases caused by harmful substances such as dust and chemicals. Every employee has the right to work in a healthy and safety environment. In the present research work two construction sites which are “National Thermal Power Corporation Limited KOLDAM” and “KIRATPUR-NERCHOWK HIGHWAY” have been taken into account for identification of accidents which have taken place on site in past. The data collections of accidents have been done through quessonnarie forms which include 20 questions based upon most expected accidents. Quessonnarie forms have been filled by various site engineers, engineers, laborers and safety managers. A total of 50 quessonnarie responses have been gathered from each highway as well as dam site. Synthesis of quessonnarie forms has been performed through GUI in order to categorize the various accidents into four classes namely minor, reportable, major and fatal. In dam construction accidents due to access scaffolding, body stressing due to muscular stressing while lifting, carrying objects, accidents in absence of proper personnel protective equipment were classified as reportable and whereas in highway construction accidents due to single or long term contact with chemical and other substances, accidents in absence of higher or concerned authorities were classified as minor, accidents due to using defective equipments or disc cutters, due to sound and pressure were classified as reportable. By applying Fuzzy logic to the accidents categorized as fatal, major, reportable, minor it can be concluded that on both dam & highway construction sites, accidents in absence of personnel protective equipments are found to be the most critical accidents. The comparison of dam and highway sites further reveals occurrences of greater number of accidents at highway site.