At roughly 11am on Tuesday, two workers fell 62 stories to their death while performing “high-altitude operations” on the top floor of Guangzhou’s International Metropolitan Plaza.
Known as zhizhu ren (蜘蛛人), or ‘spider men’ in Chinese, the workers allegedly fell suddenly from the 67th floor of the skyscraper and onto a fifth-floor platform.
A man surnamed Chen, who was working in the building at the time, told reporters he “heard the sound of broken glass and then someone screaming, followed by a loud noise.” The incident only lasted about two seconds.
Another witness surnamed Lin said it was unclear whether the men were changing the glass or cleaning the windows in the tower’s upper levels. However, given that a sheet of glass fell with the men, Lin speculates they were changing the glass when a gust of wind caused them to lose their balance.
A janitor in the plaza said the two workers were responsible for routine maintenance work inside and outside the building.
Following the incident, medical workers, police and firefighters rushed to the scene, but one of the men had already passed away and the other died shortly after the rescue attempt.
“There are robots that can clean windows now. As buildings get higher and higher the danger becomes greater. Why didn’t they consider using robots?” commented one netizen.
“I feel like it’s difficult to do business; life isn’t easy. Commodities are expensive and salaries are low. I hope the victims’ families can continue to live well after this. Let’s have a moment of silence,” suggested another netizen below the Tencent News article.
There are an estimated 400,000 people working for 20,000 different window-cleaning companies in China, according to a representative of the Occupational Safety and Health Association. Some put the number of lives lost annually in the construction sector at 1,000, with 60 percent of those deaths resulting from falls.
[Cover image via Nebula]
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