Mobile crane that crashed into Woodlands POSB branch removed

The public taking photos of the mobile crane being hoisted into the air at 2.30am. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Workers doing preparation work to remove the crane around 1.50am. PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Workers preparing to remove the crane from the crash site at 1.58am. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Workers preparing to remove the crane from the crash site at 2.13am. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
The mobile crane being loaded onto the trailer at 2.36am. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
The hole caused by the crane, seen at 2.56am. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
The crash site with the hole in the wall at 3.21am, after the crane was removed. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
The fallen crane being loaded onto a trailer. PHOTO: LEE WEI CHUEN
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Workers doing preparation work to remove the crane around 1.50am.

SINGAPORE - Work to remove the mobile crane that crashed into a Housing Board block in Woodlands Town Centre was finally completed by 3am on Thursday (Feb 25) morning.

It took just minutes for the crane to be hoisted off the ground and moved away from the wall.

Preparation works began around midnight, when the roads were closed for two rescue cranes to move into the site.

They were there to extract the crane which had fallen on its side and become stuck in the side of a POSB bank branch at 7am on Wednesday morning.

The crane had skidded off the road and fallen onto its side while making a turn at the junction of Admiralty Road and Woodlands Centre Road.

No one was injured in the incident, which left a hole around 2m wide in the side of the POSB branch.

On Thursday morning, construction workers in hardhats were seen entering the large hole which the arm of the fallen crane had punched into the side of Block 2A Woodlands Centre Road.

Other workers fastened thick cables from the two rescue cranes around the fallen machine, as curious onlookers gathered behind a police cordon.

Part of the northbound side of Woodlands Centre Road was closed for the operation.

Among the bystanders was taxi driver Mohd Anuar Kasim, 59, who was driving the night shift.

"I was going to get a coffee so I wanted to see what was happening," he said.

Watching the operation from the third-floor common corridor of the neighbouring Block 1A was resident Mohamed Noor Abdullah, 57. The road closure began around midnight and the two cranes were in position by 1am, he said.

They spent a while removing debris from the site before work began on the fallen crane.

At around 2.20am, the two cranes began to lift the fallen crane and manoeuvre it out of the building. With loud bangs and crashes, the crane arm started to emerge.

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With its arm freed, the suspended crane was pulled slowly away from the building and hoisted into the air.

The two cranes slowly manoeuvred the fallen crane towards the road, snapping a few branches off a nearby tree in the process.

By 2.30am, the fallen crane was being held aloft in the middle of the junction of Admiralty Road and Woodlands Centre Road.

The crane, still on its side, was lowered into the bed of a waiting trailer.

Removing the crane from the building took barely 10 minutes, but it was not until 3am that the fallen crane was fastened to the trailer and the two rescue cranes could relinquish their load.

At around 3.05am, the trailer and its cargo finally set off along Admiralty Road.

Earlier in the day, engineers from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) had assessed the damage. Part of an adjoining linkway structure was also damaged.

According to a BCA spokesman, the structural integrity of the building was not affected by the crash.

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