Good afternoon. A man has died after being crushed beneath a turbine blade while working at a regional Victorian windfarm.
Victoria police said the man was working at Golden Plains windfarm on Bells Road in Rokewood, about 133km west of Melbourne, when he was crushed by the blade shortly after 8am on Monday.
Danish energy company Vestas, which is constructing the energy project, confirmed a subcontractor died after a turbine blade that was on the ground was being prepared for installation, and that the site had been closed while investigations into the accident are carried out. The rotor blades used in the project are more than 80 metres long, according to the organisation’s website.
The Australian Workers Union claimed it had raised safety concerns with Vestas on the pressure facing workers due to project delays. The AWU’s Victoria state secretary, Ronnie Hayden, said delegates had recently told management “it was only dumb luck that nobody had been killed on site yet”.
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