A steel beam lies at the bottom of a pit into which it rolled after hitting and crushing a worker at the South Hobart tip yesterday.
INVESTIGATIONS are continuing after a builder was yesterday crushed to death by a steel beam in the state's South.
The 32-year-old man, of South Arm, was working on a building site at the South Hobart tip when the accident occurred at 10.45am.
Other workers at the scene applied first aid to the man after a steel beam, weighing three tonnes, hit him in the head and then fell onto his chest.
He was rushed to the Royal Hobart Hospital, but died just over an hour later.
Inspector Glen Woolley, of Tasmania Police, said the man was outside his excavator trying to position the beam into a hole so it could be pile- driven, when he was killed.
"For some reason the beam has started to swing uncontrollably in the air, hit him on the head as it has swung around. It has then come away from the excavator, rolled onto his chest, and then rolled further down the hill," Inspector Woolley said.
Police expected to hand a report to the coroner yesterday.
Workplace Standards Tasmania, meanwhile, is carrying out a separate investigation.
Workplace Standards general manager Roy Ormerod said preliminary investigations were likely to take days but a full report could take months.
"The whole process will be looked at to see if there was any breach of legislation that resulted in this person's unfortunate death," Mr Ormerod said.
That will include assessing the excavator and webbing, and whether correct safety precautions were applied and followed.
Hobart City Council had sub-contracted the company Hutchinson Builders to build the $4.5 million light vehicle waste transfer refuge station.
The construction site will stay closed while initial investigations take place.
It is the first workplace death in Tasmania since a 20-year-old Launceston man fell from the roof of a construction site in Devonport in August.
It is also the first death in the state since national workplace health and safety laws came into effect on January 1.
Unions Tasmania secretary Kevin Harkins said the death had shocked workers in the construction industry, who wanted better safety standards.
He claimed safety standards in construction remained "well below standard" despite unions repeatedly raising concerns.
