Five Men Crush To Death In Metal Recycling Plant

Detective Superintendent Mark Payne, of West Midlands Police, said a joint Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and police investigation had been launched to establish the cause.

An inquiry has begun after five men believed to be from Spain were crushed to death at a metal recycling plant in Birmingham.

 Emergency services said they were working when a 15ft (4.5m) concrete bay wall collapsed on them at 8.40am.

Blocks weighing about one-and-a-half tons each came down, along with tons of scrap metal being stored in an outside yard.

All five men were pronounced dead at the scene following the incident, at the Hawkeswood Metal Recycling in the Nechells area.

Three of the victims have been named locally as Saibo Saillah, aged 42, Alimamo Jammeh and Bangaly Dukureh, who were both from Aston in Birmingham.

All three were married with young families.

A sixth man is currently in hospital after suffering a leg injury, which is not thought to be life-threatening.

Friends and relatives of the men, who were at the scene awaiting more information, said they were all Spanish but of Gambian origin.

He added that one line of of inquiry would be to find out whether "any issues of negligence or malpractice" may have contributed to the collapse.

Mr Payne said: "We're simply trying to recover the bodies of the men and do it in a way which will help understand exactly how that wall came to fall down.

"Clearly we are investigating together with the HSE, whether there are any issues of negligence or malpractice that have contributed to that wall falling down."

Emergency services said they have accounted for all staff who were on site and that there was no prospect of anyone having survived under the many tons of rubble.

Mr Payne said: "You can imagine it's a very difficult and complex scene and we're working to try and understand exactly how that wall came down.

"We're trying to do that in a way that's safe for everybody involved, in a way that allows us to recover the deceased and understand exactly what happened."