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WATCH: OSHA investigating construction accident

Jun 22, 2009 | Shelton Green | KVUE News

A group of mourners identifying themselves as family members of one of three men killed in a West Campus construction accident Wednesday afternoon, came to the scene five hours after it happened to see the scene for themselves.

Three construction workers were killed when scaffolding on 21 Rio, a West campus Apartment building under construction, collapsed.

Austin police said four construction workers were on the scaffolding when it broke away from the 11th floor.

One man was able to hold onto the collapsed equipment and survived with minor injuries.

His three colleagues did not.

Austin police are working with the Occupational Health and Safety Organization or OSHA to determine what happened and who is responsible.

The Workers Defense Project, a non-profit group advocating for safety working conditions for low wage workers, told KVUE that Texas leads the nation in the number of deaths from construction accidents.

"We believe Texas is number one because of a lack of regulation.  We only have 77 OSHA investigators to cover over 10-million workers when we should have at least a thousand investigators," says Cristina Tzintzun with the Workers Defense Project.

As of Wednesday evening none of the names of the injured or deceased was released.

Austin police told KVUE that Cobalt Land Development owns the apartment building. However, it was unclear as to whether the construction company or contractors are responsible for the scaffolding.