I'm living in the shadow of the crane

The jib of a tower crane swings silently over your bedroom, your children’s play area, your sanctuary. The operator has gone home. The site manager is off for the day. Yet, the 50-tonne steel structure remains, a silent sentinel of risk.

As climate change brings more frequent and ferocious storms, and as the global construction industry grapples with a deadly safety record, a critical question screams for an answer: Why must ordinary residents bear the catastrophic risk for projects from which they derive no direct benefit?

This is not a theoretical fear. It is a reality forged in the rubble of collapsed cranes and extinguished lives from London to Turin and echoed in the near-misses on our own islands.

The incidents read like a horror catalogue of modern urban life.

In Bow, East London, in July 2022, a community was shattered. A Wolff 355B tower crane erected just the day before collapsed onto a row of terraced houses. A woman was killed inside her own home, a place of supposed safety.

Photographs showed the crane’s mast folded like a broken toy, its jib crushing the roofs of family homes. Investigators zeroed in on a critical failure: one of the four foundation pads had given way.

Just over a year earlier, in Turin, Italy, the scene was equally horrific. On December 18, 2021, a crane being used to assemble a larger one collapsed onto the street below. Three construction workers lost their lives. The base of the crane failed, sending the structure smashing into a six-storey building before crashing down in a tangle of metal, devastating a public roadway in a busy city district.

These are not anomalies. Data from the European Union shows that, over a recent five-year period, crane operations accounted for 25 fatalities. The causes are systemic and predictable: operator error, foundation failures and the immense, unstoppable force of high winds.

To think “it cannot happen here” is a dangerous fantasy. Malta’s own recent history is dotted with red alerts.

In January 2025, residents in Victoria, Gozo, were evacuated by the police as a crane swayed perilously in strong winds, threatening to topple. In Gżira, a load of bricks plummeted from a crane, creating a “rain of bricks” that missed causing tragedy by a hair’s breadth. The year 2025 alone saw a grim toll, with 11 fatalities on local construction sites.

When high winds whip up outside of working hours, the crane operator is not at the controls

These incidents underscore a brutal truth articulated by safety analysts: crane operations, particularly during installation, climbing and dismantling, represent the most dangerous phase, accounting for a staggering majority of fatal accidents globally. The wind, the very element we cannot control, is consistently a primary killer.

This brings us to the heart of the injustice. The cranes that define our skyline are monuments to efficiency, allowing developers to build higher and faster. Yet, this efficiency comes at a hidden cost, outsourced to every resident living in its shadow.

When high winds whip up outside of working hours, the crane operator is not at the controls. The site manager is not present. But the crane is. It sits in “free slew”, its jib a massive lever waiting for a gust to turn it into an unguided weapon.

Historically, construction in dense areas required ingenuity that limited intrusion into neighbours’ airspace, the very sovereignty of one’s home. The modern tower crane, by design, dominates the airspace for tens of metres, treating it as a casual right of way.

The developer assumes financial risk. The operator assumes professional risk. But the resident, the parent, the grandparent, the child sleeping in their bed, assumes the ultimate risk: the risk of being crushed in a collapse they did not cause and cannot prevent.

We are told to trust in regulations, in annual certifications from the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA). Yet, certifications are snapshots in time. They do not guard against the unforeseen storm, the latent foundation flaw or the human error that occurs in a single, fateful moment.

The tragedies of London and Turin are not just news stories. They are ghastly premonitions. They are proof that the unthinkable is not only possible but has already happened.

The question for our planners, our authorities and our developers is this: How many more names must be added to the list from London, Turin and beyond before we acknowledge that placing these giants of steel over the heads of families is a gamble with lives that is no longer acceptable?

It is time to reclaim the sovereignty of our airspace. It is time to demand that safety is not just a box to be ticked on a site checklist but the fundamental, non-negotiable principle that governs every swing of the jib, every day, over every home. Our lives depend on it.

Louis Borg

Louis Borg is an engineer.