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Another section of a construction crane collapsed into a house used for storage in Miami on Tuesday. Two workers died and five were injured, one critically, in the second deadly crane accident that took place in the US over the past 10 days, authorities said.
The deadly accident occurred as workers at a downtown Miami high-rise condominium were trying to raise the crane so it could have a wider reach, said Miami fire spokesman Ignatius Carroll. Only a 20-foot section of the structure collapsed, while the main vertical section of the crane remained intact.
The giant crane plummeted 30 floors and crashed into the roof of a two-story house. The building into which the crane collapsed was the home of Cameron Diaz's character in the movie "There's Something About Mary."
Two investigators from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration were sent to the scene of the accident to investigate.
The police identified the two dead men as Terrance Hennessy, 59, and Jeremy Thornsbury, 21.
Rescue teams were sent at the scene. They used a canine trained to find people trapped under debris of collapsed buildings, but fortunately it found none under the 40-story Biscayne Bay luxury condo tower.
"It was like a small earthquake. We looked outside, and we couldn't even see," said David Martinez, a pipe-fitter, who was at the fourth floor of the building eating lunch at the moment of the accident, The Associated Press reported.
Martinez said it took several minutes for the dust raised by the crash to clear so the people could see what had happened.
The Miami incident came just 10 days after a similar crane collapse that occurred in Manhattan. Seven workers died and 24 were hurt as a crane fell into a five-story townhouse in New York.
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