A contractor has blamed gravity for the accidental death of a worker on a construction site.
Abdul Karim Eltayeb, a 29-year-old father of three from Sudan, fell eight storeys to his death earlier today while working on the site of a new hotel in Sliema.
However, the contractor responsible for the site, ABZ Construction Ltd, has denied responsibility for the tragic accident.
“While I’m obviously deeply saddened by the loss of one of our employees, there’s nothing we could’ve done to prevent his death from occurring,” said ABZ project manager Brian Mangion.
“Mr Eltayeb was killed by gravity, which as everyone who studied physics knows, pulls everything towards the ground.
“Despite the best efforts of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and the people at CERN, we still don’t know exactly why this fundamental force behaves in such a deadly way.
“The sad fact is that until someone discovers the as-yet elusive elemental particle of gravity, there’s no way to alter the fabric of space-time and ensure safety on construction sites.”
Mangion said that while anti-gravity technology was still far off, ABZ had looked into ways to mitigate the effects of gravity.
The company has studied the possibility of launching entire construction sites into parabolic flight to create a weightless environment.
Other failed experiments include equipping all workers with jet-packs, hiring birds instead of humans, and installing gigantic fans on the ground to blow air upwards.
“As the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun said – we can lick gravity but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming. Speaking of overwhelming paperwork, I need to fill out a ‘death at the workplace’ report. What a hassle,” Mangion said.
