Are elevators the silent death trap?

By MARK KAPCHANGA

The elevator at the NSSF Building in Nairobi abruptly dropped from the seventh floor and slammed on the basement, killing one passenger.

Ironically in another Nairobi building, technicians had weeks earlier just fixed a faulty elevator, when they turned to the second one, the unthinkable happened: one died while another person was seriously injured.

Yet it is hard to imagine a more horrific way to die in an elevator than the fate that befell Fredrick Ochieng’ in June last year. The 21-year-old met his death after falling into an elevator shaft from the third floor of Infra House along Tom Mboya Street, Nairobi.

But experts warn that danger now lurks at NHIF Building in Upper Hill, Nairobi, where tenants continue to whine about the perpetual inconveniences from its faulty elevators. This writer was stuck in the building’s elevator for an hour in June.

“The elevators close so fast. They get stuck.  Sometimes they move from one floor to another, without the doors opening,” says Mr Maxwell Oloo, a tenant at the building.

Critics claim the NHIF Building elevators design failed to capture traffic patterns of the office block, which hosts hundreds of busy organisations including commercial banks.

Elevators are one of the safest modes of transportation. Statistics show only one in 12 million elevator rides develop problems, usually a minor fault. In fact, of the millions of elevator rides taken by humans every year, only about 20 to 30 fatalities occur.

Mishaps

Yet, recent elevator-related tragedies in Nairobi have raised concern over this essential aspect of technology that most of us take for granted, but which holds the power to kill. St John Ambulance Kenya Communications Manager Fred Majiwa warns that accidents associated with elevators are increasing.

“It is becoming a major safety concern. The number of cases we have been attending to is appalling.  Most of the victims suffer serious spinal cord injuries. More than four people have died due to these accidents so far this year,” said Mr Majiwa.

Engineers speaking to The Standard on Sunday say a popular technology labelled lift machines, which dominate the more than 3,000 elevators in Nairobi, is the most vulnerable to mishaps. They claim that they use archaic technology to control the movement of cars by rolling steel hoist ropes over a drive sheave.

“They are prone to breakdowns. They are difficult to control, and in most cases, they lack alarms or telephones to assist in cases of emergency,” said Eng Mark Njoroge. Mr Majiwa cautions Kenyans to avoid elevators with jerking motions and not to assume that they have door sensors.

“Do not get into the lift when the base of the floor is not in line with the car,” he said.

In Nairobi, elevators hurt countless people every day due to misleveling, or elevator speeds up dramatically without warning or fail to retract when a passenger is in the doorway.

These elevators lack basic controls such as overload sensor, a stop switch, which halts the elevator while in motion and an alarm button which passengers can use to signal that they have been trapped. Consumer groups say elevators must be regularly inspected and tested to ensure they are functioning correctly.

Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek) Secretary General Stephen Mutoro says Nairobi County Government needs to come up with legislation that will ensure routine check-up and maintenance of these machines.

“Cofek is working with all the 47 counties to ensure that a policy is formulated that will check these lethal incidences,” he said.

New York city, for instance, requires that all buildings housing elevators have regular, certified inspections of the lifts, with reports required to be filed with the Department of Buildings.

Critics blame the rising accidents to insufficient implementation of safe use. Mr Mutoro says the new policy will see elevator quality, manufacture, inspection, maintenance and safe use known. This will enable easy identification of the party that should be held responsible in case of an accident.

Experts blame the rising accidents to failure by constructors to involve professionals in the erection of buildings. Many private developers want to put up structures their own way, even when it poses some risk to the public. 

According to Ultra Electric Limited Managing Director Peter Rimui, where construction work is completed without the involvement of professionals, key equipment such as lifts end up being unsuitably specified and therefore fall short of the intended purpose.

Construction

“At inception of well-drawn up buildings, lift and escalator professionals should be involved from day one. In the course of the entire construction, regular site and inspection meetings should be held to audit the work in progress,” Rimui said.

He adds that during these meeting, architects, consultants and other design members follow up to ensure that the approved drawings, technical specifications of the equipment approved at inception is what is handed over to the client at the completion of the project.

The lift specifications put into attention during the design stage include the type of lifts, number of lifts, number of passengers at one time in a lift, the weight of cargo, number of floors to be serviced, speed of elevator, size of doors and finishes.

“In complex facilities, it’s prudent to determine in advance the envisaged vertical traffic in order for the lift expert to determine required number of lift sizes and speeds. An architect should incorporate these details in the design of the building,” said the Ultra Electric boss.

But this has not been the practice in Kenya. Today, individuals and firms putting up a building will go abroad, buy a lift even without proper guidance.

Once these are delivered to site, they then scout for a briefcase lift installer to do the work.

Usually, they go for the cheapest option that doesn’t even have the required experience or the mandatory installation license that a lift installation should have in accordance with the law.

The licenses are usually issued upon proof of competence by the Energy Regulatory Commission and are renewable annually.

Lifts installed by such non-professionals or half-baked installers are a recipe to disaster. “Sadly, this is what is happening in the country as this profession gets flooded with quacks,” he said.

Mr Rimui argues that lifts sourced and installed by fully fledged lift companies normally adhere to certain manufacturing norms and regulations.

For example EN 81-1 is an international Safety Rules for the Construction and Installation of traction passenger lifts.

Other norms are EN 81-70 & EN13015, which are accessibility to lifts for persons including persons with disability, and maintenance for lifts and escalators respectively.

The law requires that upon the completion of installation, all lifts must be examined by independent persons licensed by the Directorate of Occupational Safety and Health and a certificate of use issued in line with Factories Act, CAP 514, Section 30.

To ensure continued safe use of the lift such mandatory inspections should be performed every six months for the entire period that the lift is in use.

The safety inspector highlights safety-related issues as well as gives a timeline within which they must have been addressed.