The World Cup in Brazil has already smashed another sad record. The death of the seventh worker in stadium works for the competition occurred the week before last, the worst result in at least three World Cups. There were two such deaths in South Africa in 2010 and none in Germany in 2006.

Accidents are unforeseeable by definition but they can be reduced to the minimum with proper training, strict safety rules and rigorous inspection. However, all this has been left behind in Brazil in the hurry to get the stadiums ready on time for the competition. The Superintendent of the Labor Ministry in São Paulo, Luiz Antônio de Medeiros admitted: “If this was another time, the work would not be proceeding. However, it is now part of a national agenda”. Medeiros explained that this national agenda is the hosting of the Cup which Brazil was chosen for seven years ago, in 2007. The work in question is the Itaquerão stadium in the Eastern Zone of São Paulo where there have already been three deaths. The latest fatality occurred on Saturday March 29 when worker Fábio Hamilton da Cruz fell from a height of eight meters while assembling the temporary seating terrace which will increase the stadium´s capacity for the opening of the competition. There are 20,000 extra seats which will bring a total of 68,000 for the game between Brazil and Croatia on June 12.

Ten of the 12 stadiums that have been renovated or constructed for the competition are now ready. Itaquerão and the complicated Arena da Baixada, in Curitiba are the only ones still to be finished. The total cost to date is four times the initial forecast. The price has jumped from R$ 2.5 billion to R$ 9.1 billion. Besides the three deaths at the Itaquera ground, there have been fatal accidents at the Arena da Amazônia stadium in Manaus and the Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasília.

The latest death encapsulates the preparation problems for the Cup. The Itaquerão stadium should have been handed over last December. However, obstacles in defining the project, the release of loans and at the work site — two workers were killed in November 2013 when a crane fell over — have delayed everything. As a result, there is a race against time to deliver the stadium which should now only be ready in May, a month before the Cup kicks off. To do so, the construction company hired 1,600 employees, many of whom were not even given the basic safety requirements. Yet the Ministry of Labor pretends it does not see this succession of errors.

The Ministry has made seven inspections in the stadium since the provisional terracing started being assembled but none of them looked at the structures. It was only on the Monday following the death that the inspectors appeared in this sector where they met workers in the same place where Cruz fell who did not have the minimum protection. Some were not using helmets while others were without the safety belt that attaches the worker to the structure of the works to prevent him from falling. Cruz himself was not using a belt that should be obligatory, according to his colleagues. One of the workers even alerted him about the belt seconds before he fell. The accident occurred as floors were being installed on a level that had not been properly fixed. The works, which are being carried out by the company Fast Engenharia, were interrupted until the company reinforced the safety measures, with nets in the lower areas, new protection grids and other safety cables. Fast claims that all the security items used on the worksite meet the legal requirements.

The succession of accidents is not the only problem at the Itaquerão ground. The stadium still needs to sort out 26 irregularities raised by the fire service, such as a direct escape route to the field, in line with international standards. This impasse has led the São Paulo Public Prosecutor´s office to threaten to seek an injunction closing the stadium before or during the Cup. Speeding up the project has pushed the works to the limit. During previous inspections, the Labor Ministry found employees who had been working more than 10 hours a day and 20 days without a day off. The ingredients for new tragedies remain in place. If all the obstacles are overcome and the Itaquerão is really handed over 30 days before the Cup, Brazil will avoid achieving another embarrassing record.  In 2010, Johannesburg´s Soccer City stadium was ready on May 22, only 20 days before the opening game between South Africa and Mexico. In Brazil´s case, the difference in the breathing space over the South Africans will be only 10 days.

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