Footage has surfaced showing a wall collapse during engineering works on a Network Rail viaduct in Nine Elms, London.
On Christmas Day, a 70m section of brick wall collapsed near workers. Nobody was injured. CCTV footage of the incident has been released on Twitter.
Are we doing enough to ensure engineers on the ground are safe to carry out their work?
— Construction Sport (@construct_sport) January 2, 2021
Clearly not.
This is in central London on Christmas Day last week, huge incident and not a thing reported publicly? @networkrail @itvlondon @ConstructionEnq @BBCNews @railandroad pic.twitter.com/uk6v6ligea
Network Rail’s Route Director, Mark Killick, has since released a statement regarding the collapse.
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“On Christmas Day a section of brick wall collapsed from our viaduct in the Nine Elms area of London while engineering work took place. There were no injuries.
“Investigations into what happened are ongoing but we do know what the original collapse was quite small. The wall was connected with a substantial handrail, which was bolted through the bricks, and when the small section failed, the handrail pulled a much longer length down.
The statement continues to rule out the wall being struck by machinery, but “the exact cause of the collapse is yet to be determined.”
Network Rail are now carrying out a thorough survey of the surrounding area to help them understand how this happened.
“Sadly, without a wall in place, we cannot reinstate a small section of track and therefore run trains on one of the eight lines. We are working hard to rebuild the affected area as soon as we can to minimise disruption to South Western Railway services and passengers.”
From January 4, South Western Railway will run an amended service and the remaining work at Nine Elms will continue.
Network Rail has also released a video showing work at the site, along with information regarding the incident.
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