HSE urges greater awareness of trench collapse dangers

HSE Press Release: E118:04 - 19 August 2004

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is reminding construction workers of the dangers they face when working in excavations following recent fatalities caused by trench collapses.

There have been three fatal incidents since April where workers have been killed due to trenches collapsing on top of them. These could have been avoided if the appropriate safety measures had been taken.

HSE Specialist Inspector Nigel Thorpe said:

"Trench collapses are entirely avoidable. Without suitable support, any face of an excavation will collapse; it's just a matter of when. The steeper and deeper the face, the wetter the soil, the sooner the collapse."

"Trenchless technologies are available which avoid many of the hazards of excavation, but if a trench is required modern proprietary systems allow the ground support to be installed without the need to enter the excavation."

Practical advice on working in excavations is available from HSE, and includes:

• if appropriate, using trenchless technology such as directional drilling or impact moling, to avoid the need to excavate a trench in the first place;
• if a trench is used, preventing the sides and the ends of trenches from collapsing by battering them to a safe angle or supporting them with proprietary support systems, trench sheets or timber;
• providing suitable edge protection to prevent persons or materials falling into the excavation, and not entering unsupported excavations;
• avoiding surcharging the ground adjacent to the excavation with plant, stored materials, spoil or foundation loads from existing structures;
• never working ahead of the support;
• ensuring there is a suitable means of access and egress;
• remembering that work in shallow trenches can be dangerous, i.e. if the work involves bending or kneeling in the trench; and
• locating existing services in the vicinity of and above the line of the excavation.

Notes to editors

1. The numbers of fatalities from trench collapses in recent years are:
   
   

   Year	97/98	98/99	99/00	00/01	01/02	02/03	03/04	04/05
   Fatals	0	1	0	1	1	2	2	3 to date

2. Recent fatalities caused by trench collapses are:
   • A man was killed in Scotland in April when the 2.5 metre unsupported trench he was working in collapsed on top of him;
   • A man was killed whilst working on a conservation development in East Sussex in May when he jumped into a 3 metre deep trench which then collapsed on him; and
   • One man was killed and another injured in July when a 3 metre deep trench collapsed on them in an unsupported area of work in Yorkshire.
3. HSE has published Construction Information Sheet No.8 (rev 1) on Safety in Excavations which is on the HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/cis08.pdf [Withdrawn - removed from website 28/04/2008]
4. Further guidance is available in the HSE publication Health and Safety in Excavations: Be safe and shore, HSG 185, ISBN 0 7176 1563 4, price £8.50. Copies of both publications are available from HSE Books.

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