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Worker death stops construction of Snowy 2.0

Construction on the $5.9bn project will be halted until Tuesday night following the death of a subcontractor.

Work on Snowy Hydro 2.0 is paused following the death of a subcontractor. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian
Work on Snowy Hydro 2.0 is paused following the death of a subcontractor. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian

Snowy Hydro has paused work at its Snowy 2.0 project after the death of a worker in a road accident.

The company said the worker died in a single vehicle accident on Snowy Mountains Highway on Monday, with work paused until Tuesday night as a mark of respect for the victim.

The main contractor on the massive pumped hydro scheme, Webuild’s Future Generation Joint Venture (FGJV), said the fatal road accident involved a subcontractor and occurred just outside of Adaminaby, about 50km northwest of Cooma.

“To honour the memory of our co-worker, all Snowy 2.0 project sites have temporarily ceased operations and work will not resume until night shift Tuesday 25 April,” the company said.

While accident investigators are still determining the cause of the crash, the fatality comes after months of union complaints over safety standards at the massive $5.9bn project.

Work at Snowy 2.0 is already running at least a year late, with cost overruns mounting due to difficult conditions on parts of the job, including soft ground at a key tunnel that has bogged one of FGJV’s tunnel boring machines since before Christmas.

In early March Snowy said it was still working to stabilise the ground around the machine.

Nick Evans
Nick EvansResource Writer

Nick Evans has covered the Australian resources sector since the early days of the mining boom in the late 2000s. He joined The Australian's business team from The West Australian newspaper's Canberra bureau, where he covered the defence industry, foreign affairs and national security for two years. Prior to that Nick was The West's chief mining reporter through the height of the boom and the slowdown that followed.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/worker-death-stops-construction-of-snowy-20/news-story/f35cdacd586ff3fae87a732c671ce7b0