UPDATE: A young father of two was crushed to death when a brick wall collapsed in strong winds at a construction site in Brighton East.
Michael Klanja, 30, of Tooradin, was killed in front of a workmate at the site in Elizabeth Street, Brighton East, when a four-metre-high brick wall fell down about 9.30am on Monday.
Mr Klanja and his co-worker had been on an upper level of a partly built townhouse on the site before climbing down due to strong winds.
“They thought it would be safer to work at the rear of the construction site,” Detective Sergeant Gerry Richardson said.
The pair were working beneath a half-built garage wall that police believe was collapsed by a “large gust of wind”.
Mr Klanja was trapped under the wall while his workmate called for an ambulance, but he died before emergency crews arrived.
Sergeant Richardson said an investigation needed to examine how the wall was braced and whether that contributed to the fatal incident.
The Victorian WorkCover Authority has launched an investigation into the circumstances of the wall collapse to determine whether the site complied with safety standards.
Bilic Homes, a father-and-son-run construction company based in Dandenong South, began building two townhouses at the Elizabeth Street site earlier this year.
WorkCover investigators arrived at the site shortly after 11am and interviewed the building site manager, Stan Bilic, while police spoke with neighbours.
“They couldn’t work on the top deck today because it was too windy so they must have been working on the flooring next to where the wall was,” neighbour and retired builder John Wallace said.
“It was a full-height one-storey wall and it seems like it was unsupported, unfortunately.
“There was that big wall collapse in Swanston Street and this is almost a repeat of that.”
CFMEU state secretary John Setka said the death was a “terrible reminder” of the dangers building workers faced every day.
“The CFMEU will keep working to make sure building workers make it home safely to their families,” he said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased.”
