At least two ship-hands have escaped injury in yet another workplace accident at Lyttelton Port.
A ship's crane was badly damaged yesterday during a loading operation at wharf number 7, with a small team working to load the Anacapa Light with scrap steel.
Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) confirmed an accident took place but referred all questions to the company responsible for the operation, Lyttelton Stevedore Services.
Company manager Alex Stewart said the matter was still being investigated but it appeared to have been caused by human error.
"Nobody was hurt or anything, it was just a driver error and the crane has been damaged," he said.
"It bent the jib off the crane in half… I'm not an engineer and there's been four or five of them floating around here so who knows [what happened], I really can't say too much at all."
Mr Stewart said incident involved his team and had nothing to do with port staff or management.
"[LPC has] had a hammering [lately] and… even though we're in the port and they might have overall authority over everything they have no authority over the working of the ship."
The incident happened around 3.20am yesterday and few people were on site at the time.
LPC has been under pressure to clean up its health and safety practices after a series of workplace incidents over the last few months, including the death of a volunteer firefighter in August.
Two workers also lost their lives in accidents at the port late last year.
3 News
source: newshub archive
