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Bosses 'ignored warnings' before station collapse

Safety engineer at World Cup stadium site had warned his supervisor of problems which led to two deaths

Supervisors at the Brazilian World Cup stadium where a crane collapse killed two workers had been told of the danger and ignored it, a trade union leader said.

Sintracon-SP president Antonio de Sousa Ramalho said a safety engineer at the at the site had warned his supervisor of problems with the operation, only to have his concerns brushed aside.

The Sao Paulo-based civil industry union chief said supervisors pressed ahead with the operation to finish the roof even though underlying soil had been soaked through after several days of rain.

He said the engineer had warned that the ground was not stable enough to support installation of the 500-ton piece of roofing.

"To his surprise, he was told by the supervisor that nothing was wrong and work should continue," said Mr Ramalho, who declined to provide the worker's name for fear of possible reprisals.

"They discussed the matter for a while but, in the end, the supervisor's decision stood."

Sao Paulo's Arena Corinthians was slated to be completed by the end of December and workers have suggested that speed rather than safety was the top priority on the construction site, with many working 12-hour shifts and skipping holidays.

Mr Ramalho said that workers had been pulling long hours for quite some time in an effort to get the stadium completed on deadline, a point confirmed by loader Sergio Almeida, who works on the site and said typical shifts were 12 to 13 hours long.

Odebrecht, the powerful Brazilian construction company behind the stadium project and three other World Cup venues, denied the claims.

"Odebrecht and Sport Club Corinthians clarify that there was no warning previous to the accident," the firm said in a statement.

The company said that Mr Ramalho's union did not represent most of the workers involved in the crane operation.

And a civil defence official claimed that an initial inspection of the construction site a day after the accident showed little evidence that the ground was unstable.

"When we looked at it, it didn't seem like the ground shifted, maybe just a few millimetres," Jair Paca de Lima said in a television interview.

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