Human Cost Of Major Construction Projects

The Eiffel Tower amazed everyone when it opened for the 1889 World's Fair.The Eiffel Tower stands as the tallest man-made structure in the world at 986 feet.The Eiffel Tower stands 986 feet high.

French engineer Gustave Eiffel calculated the design.French engineer Gustave Eiffel.Eiffel's company built the metal framework for the Statue of Liberty. They preassembled iron beams in their factories. This meant they only mounted them on site. This cut construction time. The tower finished in two years and two months. This reduced accident chances.

Because of this careful work, no deaths or serious injuries happened during the Eiffel Tower's construction.

The Burma-Thailand Railway, also called the 'Death Railway,' caused 106,000 deaths. The 1957 film that detailed its construction won an Oscar.The Bridge on the River Kwai.

During WWII, Japan lost the Battle of Midway. Japan could no longer easily supply its soldiers in Burma (now Myanmar), so it needed a new route.

This route became a 250-mile railway from Thailand to Burma. The Japanese refused to use their own workers. They forced some...60,000 Allied prisoners of war.Along with 200,000 civilians, these prisoners built the railway.

The railway crossed dense jungle. Over 60 bridges were part of the project. Workers got little food. They worked long, tough hours.Not surprisingly,Approximately 90,000 civilians and 16,000 POWs died building the railroad and its bridges.

Much of the railway is now taken down.

The Suez Canal seemed impossible. Connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas seemed amazing, but how could a canal stretch across Egypt?

Enter French engineerLouis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds.He found the Mediterranean and Red Seas shared the same altitude. This meant no locks were needed, making it cheaper. Another Frenchman,Ferdinand de Lesseps.Ferdinand de Lesseps got permission to form a company to design and build the canal. Work started in 1859.

Construction took 10 years. About 1.5 million workers carved the waterway by hand. Many were slave laborers. Working conditions were hot and harsh.

Cholera, extreme heat, exhaustion, and other sicknesses caused an estimated 120,000 people to die building the Suez Canal.An estimated 120,000 people perished building the Suez Canal.These deaths occurred while building the Suez Canal.

The decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar faced backlash in 2010. Outrage grew as poor stadium construction conditions reached the public.The 2022 World Cup in Qatar.The announcement of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar generated backlash in 2010. Outrage grew as the poor working conditions of stadium builders became public knowledge.

Qatar used a kafala system until 2020.The kafala system.This system means a migrant worker has a sponsor who controls all work aspects. Sponsors have confiscated passports to stop workers from leaving, forced labor, and delayed pay.Sponsors can confiscate passports to stop workers from leaving, implement forced labor, and delay payment.

One worker described...his experience.He built the stadium like a prison. He forced workers to work long hours under the hot sun and threatened them with 'consequences' if they complained.

People long suspected the death toll from work. The secretary general of Qatar’s World Cup organizing committee had this suspicion.Hassan al-Thawadi.Al-Thawadi admitted in 2022 that 400 to 500 migrant workers died.

Human rights groups think the number reached the thousands.

Bridge building is a dangerous job, especially in the 1890s. Workers built a bridge over the Tsavo River.Tsavo River.Workers in Kenya faced an extra threat: lions.

Lions live in Africa, so seeing them near the Tsavo River was common. But some lions developed a hunger for human blood; bridge workers fed that hunger.Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson.Patterson shot and killed the pair. He estimated they killed 135 bridge workers.

Patterson sold the lions to the Field Museum in Chicago for $5,000. Visitors still see the stuffed bodies. The Field Museum investigated further and found the death count was about 35.The number of humans killed was about 35.It was not 135. Researchers believe the cats targeted humans because they were easier to catch, not to mention softer on the lions' decaying teeth.

After finishing the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps considered building a canal through Panama.Ferdinand de Lesseps.He planned a canal through Panama. It needed only 51 miles of land compared to the 120-mile Suez Canal. How hard could it be?

The work proved very hard. Panama's terrain differed greatly from Egypt's flat land. Jungles held poisonous snakes, mountains, valleys, and thick foliage. Floods washed supplies away. Dysentery, yellow fever, and malaria spread through the workers. During the 1882 wet season, twenty to thirty workers died each day.Laborer Alfred Dottin.Dottin described the scene:

Death was a constant companion. I will never forget the train loads of dead men being moved daily, like just lumber.

The French stopped the project in 1888, seven years after starting it.They lost about 20,000 workers then—mostly people from Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica.Those workers were mostly from Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica.

Sixteen years later, an American group tried to restart the project. They learned from the French errors and researched the causes of the diseases, especially yellow fever.Yellow fever.The Americans found mosquitos were the cause. They began draining water pools, adding window screens, and spraying crude oil mixed with kerosene in water pools to kill mosquito larvae.

Their actions worked; the death toll from disease dropped sharply. In the nine years the Americans finished the canal, they recorded just over 5,600 deaths.5,600The project resulted in 25,000 deaths.

The Empire State Building, set to be the world's tallest in the 1920s, took years to build.Empire State BuildingConstruction shot up in 410 days.

Officially, only five deaths were recorded.Five recorded deaths occurred.Some deaths did not directly relate to construction.These deaths includedfalls from scaffolding, falling down an elevator shaft, being struck by a hoist, a truck accident, and an explosives accident.

Historians think the death toll is higher than five because safety at the site was lax. Famous photographs by Lewis Hine show this.Lewis HineHine took pictures of workers. One photo shows a dozen men eating lunch on a beam hundreds of feet up. Another shows a man fixing a cord while standing on a thin beam.

The Transcontinental Railroad aimed to connect both sides of the US, but building the nearly 2,000 mile railway was hard.A 2,000-mile railwayWorking conditions were severe. Workers faced frigid winters, hot summers, and danger from the West's mountains.

Most Americans saw the risks and did not apply for jobs. Thus, the US sought workers elsewhere, targeting China during the Opium Wars.

An estimated total number of20,000 Chinese laborersTwenty thousand Chinese laborers worked on the Transcontinental Railroad. They earned half of American or European wages and got the riskiest jobs, like hanging off a cliff with dynamite.

We do not know the exact number of railroad workers who died. The count is around 1,200.around 1,200Historians think close to 1,000 laborers died from rock slides and explosions. The actual number is likely higher.

Besides the workers, hundreds of Native American men, women, and children died from raids by railroad companies and the US government to control them as the railroad crossed their land.

A rumor suggests those who died while building the Hoover Dam were buriedHoover Damwithinthe concrete of the structure.the concrete of the structure.

This is false. Builders used concrete blocks, stacking one on top of another.They poured one bucket of concrete at a time.After emptying a bucket onto a block, five men stomped to make sure air bubbles left. A person was always visible behind a few inches of concrete.

Accidents did happen during the five years of construction from 1931 to 1936. These included falls, drownings, deaths from blasts, and equipment accidents. Ninety-six workers lost their lives.five years of constructionConstruction ran from 1931 to 1936. Falls, drownings, deaths from blasts, and equipment accidents happened. Ninety-six workers lost their lives.A memorialstands at the dam to honor these individuals.

The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, lauded as a huge engineering achievement, yet it carried a dark feeling during construction.Brooklyn BridgeConstruction of the Brooklyn Bridge carried an air of darkness.

John A. Roebling designed the longest suspension bridge then built.John A. RoeblingRoebling's first victim was the first. A docking boat crushed his foot during a site survey, and tetanus killed him in July 1869. His 32-year-old son, Washington, then became the head developer. Later, Washington became bedridden after suffering "the bends" from working far below the water.

Decompression sicknessDecompression sicknessDecompression sickness hits when you surface too fast after a deep-water pressure change. Gases in your blood bubble out, causing severe pain—and often injury—to joints and organs.

Workers in underwater chambers succumbed to this disorder; people did not know about it then. More workers died from falls, snapped cables, and other bridge accidents.

The Brooklyn Bridge opened, but its grim reputation remained. A stampede occurred when 20,000 people walked across it on Memorial Day in 1883, seven days after opening.Twelve people died in the mayhem.Twelve people died in the mayhem.

When theTaipei 101 skyscraperThe Taipei 101 skyscraper finished in 2004, making it the world's tallest building at 1,667 feet. The Burj Khalifa took the title in 2007 in the United Arab Emirates.Burj KhalifaBurj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.

Building a structure as tall as Taipei 101 forces workers into very risky spots. Crews worked in two cranes up to 56 stories high.The Burj Khalifa has 56 stories in the air.While operating the machines, an earthquake struck. The cranes crashed down onto the street below, injuring many.Cranes crashed downonto the street below, injuring many.

Five workers died. Some scientists suggest the building itself caused the earthquake that made the fall. The Taipei 101 used steel and concrete, which offered some fire and earthquake defense but made the skyscraper much heavier. The Taipei 101 weighs an estimated 700,000 tons, and that weight might have reopened a fault line.The crash involved an estimated 700,000 tons.the stress of all that weight may have reopened a fault line.

Business owners and labor rights groups in Taiwan united against hiding worker deaths. Unlike other companies on this list, they acted.A monument was commissioned.to remember the workers who passed.

Funding for the Erie Canal passed in 1817. Many people saw it as a wasted effort.Erie CanalAn engineering feat connecting the Hudson River and Great Lakes had never been done or attempted in the US.

The project was so ignored that trained European engineers avoided it. This meant untrained, home-taught American engineers took the job.Home-taught American engineersThe team took charge. The process was very DIY, but the engineers finished the canal in just eight years.

Workers still learned on the job. Accidents occurred often. Canal collapses trapped workers. People used black powder haphazardly to clear rocks. Mosquitos carrying malaria killed the most people, even though people did not know about it then.

An estimated figure is presented.1,000 people diedThis happened out of 50,000 workers (mostly Irish and German immigrants) building the canal.Irish and German workers suffered.immigrants