According to some witness, the incident happened when the people, aged between 40-50, were erecting the pylon under a power line in a field in Cam Xuyen District. The pylon which touched medium-voltage wire caused the deaths.
The scene of the accident
The victims were all men from Hung Duong Village, Cam Hung Commune, Ha Tinh Province whose families have financial difficulties. Two among those are siblings.
The four were hired as workers for a telecommunications project.
According to Bui Quang Quan, head of the electricity branch in Cam Xuyen District, safety rules required the telco office to ask for the power to be cut off before allowing anyone to start work near heavy voltage cables, but that had not happened.
Local police are investigating the cause of the incident.
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs' Labour Safety Department reported that workplace accidents killed 928 people and injured 1,915 others in Vietnam in 2017, up increased by 1% against 2016.
The cause of the accidents was mainly attributed to a lack of vocational safety knowledge of both workers and their employers along with substandard labour safety equipment and violations in labour safety.
Management agency supervision and reports on workplace accidents have remained lax, particularly in cases without labour contracts.