Falling tree crushes and kills worker

SINGAPORE - A tree fell on an excavator on Sunday afternoon, killing the worker inside.

The incident took place at a construction site on Thomson Road.

The man who died, Mr Gunasakaram, 36, had been working in Singapore for about 10 years. Fellow workers called him Guna.

The Indian national leaves a wife and children.

Excavator operator Sudalei said Mr Guna was removing weeds around the tree when it fell.

They had been working in the area for about a month and only a small patch of land remained to be cleared.

After clearing the land of weeds, they would remove the trees in phases.

"That tree was not supposed to fall," another worker said.

While Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers entered the area, workers stood quietly at the road entrance, staring into the distance.

A group of five waited by a van at the nearby carpark.

Dressed in mud-caked clothes and construction boots, they were in tears as they recalled what happened.

An SCDF spokesman said getting to the victim was a complex operation as the ground was uneven and the tree had crushed the driver's cabin.

First, the tree had to be cut and removed, and then the cabin. The Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Dart) was involved in this.

Mr Guna was pronounced dead a little before 3.40pm.

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