2 people killed by elevator at Bulawayo's tallest building

A WOMAN and a technician who was trying to rescue her from a jammed elevator car plunged to their death from the eighth floor of the National Railways of Zimbabwe headquarters on Friday at around 4pm, only to be discovered 24 hours later yesterday.

The technician from Schindler Lifts had been called to assist the trapped woman, who is an NRZ employee in the accounts department.

Police and the Bulawayo Fire Brigade battled for close to three hours to retrieve the bodies of the victims from the shaft. They only managed to recover the bodies around 7pm.

National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the incident last night.

"We can confirm that two people died yesterday (Friday) after an elevator at the NRZ headquarters jammed. A woman was trapped inside the elevator. The parastatal called a technician to look into the fault after that we believe he tried to pull her out but was overpowered because the woman was of heavy build. The two subsequently fell into the shaft leading to their death. It is a very sad occurrence and I would want to console the families of the deceased," she said.

Details of the accident and how it occurred were still sketchy last night but sources at NRZ said the elevator developed a fault and trapped the woman at around 4pm on Friday. A technician was called to attend to the scene and went in but never came back.

Schindler then sent another technician yesterday 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 deceased woman's relatives evoked pity from scores of people who were gathered at the scene as they wailed uncontrollably while police were battling to retrieve the bodies.

NRZ acting general manager Mr Lewis Mukwada said the parastatal would send a team of inspectors to investigate the accident on Monday.

"It was a very unfortunate accident. Government inspectors will be coming to carry out a full-scale investigation on Monday. According to our preliminary findings, we understand there was someone trapped in an elevator and a technician from Schindler elevator services was called in to attend to the fault. We are not sure what happened after that. But the bodies of the technician and our employee were found this afternoon. We believe they fell through the shaft," he said.

President of the Zimbabwe Amalgamated Workers Union Mr Kumurai Moyo described the accident as a sad development.

National Social Security Authority (NSSA) acting director for occupational health and safety Mr Benjamin Mutetwa last night confirmed having received a report of the accident. Mr Mutetwa said a team of investigators would be dispatched to the scene of the mishap today to investigate the matter.

He was, however, unable to comment on the general state of elevators in buildings around the country, saying he would need to liaise with other departments at NSSA before giving his comment.

"We have been informed about the accident but the details are still sketchy at the moment. We will be sending a team of our officers to conduct an investigation after which I will be able to give you a full comment," he said.

NRZ headquarters is the tallest building in the central business district of Bulawayo at 100 metres with 23 floors and over 500 employees working from the building. At the ground floor and first floor of the building there are banks, fashion boutiques, cellphone accessories shops, and a whole lot of other businesses.

The mishap comes a few months after an elevator technician died and three others were injured when an elevator at Chaminuka Building in Harare broke loose and plunged from the ninth to the fourth floor. It was reported that technicians were working on the elevator for decommissioning.