Sunk Crane

Curragh Boom Drop

Update Mar '10:
More people seem to be looking at this page rather than the home page, so I thought I'd post a copy of the video here too.:




I finally got some photos of the Curragh boom accident this week, so I thought I'd post them right away, since there's a lot of interest in them.

This has probably got to be the biggest mining accident in the Bowen Basin for years. Curragh was performing a shutdown of its dragline, and decided to lower the boom using a Manitowoc crane instead of using the internal mechanisms. Something went wrong with the crane, and the boom fell from nearly its full height.

In the photos, you can see the damage to the top chord of the boom. The Manitowoc crane itself is destroyed except for the main house. You can see the remains of the front boom hanging over the remains of the rear boom. It's amazing no-one was seriously hurt. The boom itself would have to be totally written off, and rebuilt from scratch.