Risk Assessment: Construction and Civil Works
Workers Affected by Works Hazards
RISK
10 Persons falling onto a different level.
RISK FACTORS
- Falls inside footings, trenches or excavations (getting in and out of them, when carrying out tasks involving shuttering, vibrating concrete, etc.).
- Falls when jumping into footings or semi-deep trenches, jumping into a pit or trench.
- Falls into footings or trenches due to being hit by earth-moving machinery.
- Falls into trenches or excavations due to being pushed by the chute as a result of out-of-control movements of the moving cement-mixer truck.
- Falls when getting on or off earth-moving machinery.
- When loading, unloading or placing materials in the back of trucks.
- When loading, unloading or placing materials using cranes, truck-mounted cranes or tower cranes.
- When getting on and off machinery.
- During the erection and dismantling of scaffolding.
- During shuttering of walls and concrete pillars.
- Falls from shuttering when injecting concrete.
- Falls when putting up concrete structures, enclosures and coverings.
- Falls during surveying work.
- When using ladders to access different levels in works or in our clients’ facilities.
- Falls off cliffs, embankments, etc., in works on rugged, mountainous terrain such as wind farms, etc.
PREVENTIVE MEASURES
Rules for acting
- To carry out temporary work at heights, priority is to be given to collective protection over personal protection (elevating platforms or scaffolding are preferable to portable ladders or access and positioning techniques using ropes).
- The dimensions of the equipment for this type of work is to allow circulating without any hazard.
- Collective protection devices against falls can only be interrupted at the access points of a stairway or ladder.
- If an anti-fall collective protection device must be removed, alternative measures are to be provided for. Work is not to commence without prior application of said measures. Once work has finished (temporarily or definitively), any collective protection devices that have been removed are to be re-installed.
- To carry out temporary work at heights, meteorological conditions cannot place workers in danger.
- Those who carry out surveying tasks are to be knowledgeable of the hazards of the terrain and are to adopt the necessary precautions: avoid the vicinity of the edges of precipices, avoid walking on unstable ground or ground that is susceptible to landslides, pay the maximum attention to places of transit, etc.
- Maintain safety distances with respect to earth-moving machinery.
- Use the provided access ways to get on and off vehicles.
- Keep vehicles free of grease, oils and mud.
- Always get down facing the vehicle.
- When erecting the structure of a building, beam suspended nets are to be used that cover the perimeter of the works including interior light shafts. These nets are to go up with the structure itself and are to be installed on the floor under construction. Tubular scaffolding may also be used to protect the entire perimeter of the works and must go up at the same time as the structure.
- Use of framing nets to avoid falls from one floor to another, lower floor.
- Scaffolding and/or an elevating platform is to be used to erect shuttering at a height. Try to reduce the use of ladders as far as possible.
- Scaffolding , concrete pouring towers or modular shuttering with built-in scaffolding is to be employed for concreting work at heights.
- Avoid guiding loads suspended from the tower crane, truck-mounted crane or crane.
